


because a cat's the only cat who knows where it's at

by tremontaine



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Animal Transformation, Crack, Fluff and Angst, Multi, OT3, Threesome - F/M/M, Touch-Starved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-24
Updated: 2014-11-24
Packaged: 2018-02-26 21:53:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2667665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tremontaine/pseuds/tremontaine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wherein Captain America is transmogrified into a small feline and finally finds the time to work out some issues. (Issues with his feelings.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	because a cat's the only cat who knows where it's at

**Author's Note:**

> There isn't any plot and there isn't any action; it's mostly talking and cuddling and sex and silliness. And Steve's issues. Mostly Steve's issues.

 

It was a Thursday, which meant that a) Steve really should have known better than to get out of bed, let alone leave the house and b) clearly the universe still hadn’t forgiven him for that one time he accidentally set fire to Mrs Voronov’s washing line when he and Buck had been playing at Treasure Island.

Well, he said the universe. Truth was he suspected Mrs Voronov of being a witch – possibly Baba Yaga herself – and would not have been surprised, if he ever returned at any point to Sheepshead Bay, to find her still living, sedately unchanged since 1937, in that same fourth floor apartment in the same cabbage-smelling walk-up she had occupied when he and Ma had lived on the opposite side of the alley.

Anyway. There was no point mewing over it now.

Ha.

Extricating himself from the tangles of his own uniform was a bother – he had never realised how heavy it was – but the neck-hole let in light, and Steve squirmed and twisted and crawled and eventually got his head out. The helmet had rolled off to one side, uncomfortably skull-like in its abandoned state. Free of the uniform, Steve stretched luxuriously and yawned, tail lashing without his volition. How big was he? He took a few experimental steps towards a shop window – his body rolled strangely from side to side and he felt dizzy, light-headed, his chest tight and his breath short, but he found his balance pretty quick if he said so himself – and peered at his reflection.

_On the whole I’d rather have been a dog_ , he thought vaguely. _Golden retrievers are nice_. It wasn’t just being a cat, though Steve had never been a cat person in his life. No, it was that the serum had apparently been left in his other body. He looked underfed, even mangy. His legs felt weak and his heart was beating madly. For a moment he took it for adrenaline. Then he realised it was the effort of crawling out of the uniform and walking to the shop window.

_Great. How am I supposed to get home like this?_ Manhattan to Brooklyn was a long way for a cat as small as he was. Could he still read? Hmm, _Petrelli’s Greengrocer_ – yep, looked like. That was a relief. Maybe he could sneak onto the subway. He’d never cheated on a subway ticket in his entire damn life, not even right before his Ma died when things had been at their worst, but he was a cat, things were desperate now in a whole other way.

It would be slow going even with the subway if he couldn’t make it more than a few steps at a time without feeling like his heart would burst. Lord above – an even more horrible thought – did cats get asthma?? Steve had no idea, but the very possibility just about gave him a panic attack. Of all the problems he had had before the serum, asthma had been the very worst, the one thing he had never been able to come to terms with. Short and ill-proportioned and migraines and easy prey to whatever illnesses were all things you could work with, somehow, but an inability to do something as simple as breathing!

The old familiar nausea twisted in his gut. Oh, he couldn’t deal with this – he couldn’t. He had to get home, he had to get home now. Ma was gone and would never come back, but Bucky was at home. Bucky would look after him even if he did have a tail. And mange. And cat-asthma. He felt he would put up with any amount of coddling in return for someone telling him he didn’t have asthma again. Nat would not coddle him – Natasha didn’t know how to coddle anyone, but Bucky would bite his lip in that way he got whenever he wanted to yell at Steve like Steve was no older than Becca and heap blankets on him, and – and Steve really was completely shaken up. He hated being coddled, especially by Bucky.

Steve took a long, hitching breath, gathering his strength and forcing his mind to calmness. Home. Home to Bucky. And Nat. It would be all right if he could just get home.

+++

Sneaking onto the subway was not as bad as it might have been, though it took him over an hour to finish what should have been a ten-minute walk to the nearest station, and all the while he was dragging himself along there were lights in the sky and angry noises. Steve absolutely did not like those. It was like being shelled. The trouble was that he was too far down to be able to tell what was going on. And people’s voices! They were so loud they drove spikes through his skull. Lots of them seemed to be standing about on the sidewalks, doing absolutely nothing. When (if??) he got his serum body back Steve was resolved never to do that again, out of respect to small lost animals who might have cat-asthma and were just trying to get home.

On his way down the subway steps Steve nearly got stepped on six separate times; eventually he attached himself as unobtrusively as possible to an old lady with a stick and a giant handbag who looked like she might plausibly own a cat. There was a small circle of space around her made by commuters subconsciously avoiding her in their hurry to get past without causing an accident, and Steve took shameless advantage.

Just as shamelessly, he abandoned her as soon as he saw she was getting on the wrong train.

Getting up the steps once he’d reached Brooklyn was an awful chore. He huffed and panted and shivered with weariness, stopping on every other step, aware he was probably limping, but in the end he managed it, and would have whooped in triumph if he could have. It had felt like climbing Everest.

He’d never climbed a mountain for fun before. If he turned out not to have cat-asthma he swore he would climb one to celebrate. Maybe Bucky and Nat would want to come. They could make it a proper vacation.

Now. He came up these steps and turned left; there was the homeless guy by the flower shop with his coffee-cup begging bowl that Steve often passed. He felt bad for not having any money on him this time and would have apologised, but of course he didn’t have a voice anymore. That just made him feel worse.

The homeless guy said, “Hey fella,” smiling through his scruffy beard. Steve was glad to have made the guy smile at least. For a moment he thought about lying down and just going to sleep. He was so very tired. And the homeless guy seemed nice. “Where do you live?”

Live, live, of course. Steve gave himself a shake and set off across the expanse of blanket, tail waving determinedly. Bucky. Bucky was at home. It was only a few blocks.

“Bye then,” the homeless guy called after him, laughing a little.

It was past dark by the time Steve got to his own building; he had wheezed and gasped his way past ‘a few blocks’ for several horrible centuries, with frequent stops against fences and trees, waiting for his thundering heartbeat to settle to a calmer rhythm. The trick was to hold still and stay calm, to concentrate on his breathing… he’d forgotten just about everything about how to be this ill, he realised. It made him feel helpless, which made him feel angry, which made him feel even more helpless, and Steve hated helplessness, invalidity, uselessness – like all he was good for was to swoon and be brought medicines and smelling-salts like a drippy heroine in a Victorian novel; Molly Atkinson had called him Laura Fairlie all through school. She’d been that most vicious kind of bully: the kind no one believed it of, because they were so sweet and nice to everyone who counted.

Steve shook himself again, a stern full-body shake. Molly Atkinson was long dead and gone, and had probably grown out of being a bully decades before she’d died. Strange he should remember her now when he hadn’t thought of her in years… Now. Was he too tired to climb up to the top floor? He couldn’t be. (He probably was. His legs were shaking and his breath was very loud in his own ears and there were little spots of dark at the corner of his vision.) He wouldn’t sleep in a goddamned dumpster, cat or no, and surely it couldn’t be that hard to jump, first to the rim of it and then to the bottom of the fire escape, he had seen cats jump farther distances than this dozens of times –

Smacking head-on into the side of a dumpster really _hurt_.

Steve lay, breathless and shocked on the cold gritty tarmac, shaking, wondering if he was bleeding from somewhere, for a few very long moments. Then he heard someone laughing, this quiet lovely husky laugh. It made him feel warm right down to the tips of his tail and ears. He wanted to keep that laugh, he decided, dazed.

“Oh sweetheart,” said a woman’s voice. “Aren’t you the poorest little Puss?”

That, Steve felt, was going too far. He would have liked to growl, but before he had enough strength to try it warm gentle hands were lifting him up. He had a strange sensation of two separate instincts, equally strong: his cat body liked being held and petted but Steve couldn’t stand to be touched unasked, he hated hands on him, always, except Buck’s, or, of course –

“What’s the matter, Puss? You’re shivering all over. Can’t you see too well? Or is it just bad luck and trouble? That’s what you’re supposed to be, a beautiful black cat like you. Oh – what lovely eyes.”

He blinked them. Then he blinked them again. Then, just for good measure, he headbutted the arm holding him in case this was a hallucination.

Natasha Romanov was cradling him in the crook of her arm and cooing at him.

Well.

Could’ve been worse.

(It could’ve been better too, less cooing, less _fur_ , more privacy, more – uh – well – inti…macy? but Steve had been very firmly Not Dwelling On That Notion for some time now and hated to break a winning streak, or a bad habit.)

“I’m gonna bring you inside, little Liho,” said Natasha, smiling into his face. It was a look that Steve did not think she had ever directed at his serum body, fond and warm and gentle. “All right? We’ll see if we can’t fix you up. Pretty sure Steve’s a dog person but I’m not sure about James.”

Steve was still too astonished to be able to think up a proper way of trying to communicate with her (good grief, what had he been planning, anyway – he’d jump through the window into Bucky’s lap and Buck would somehow read his mind and know who he was?), and he was also still shaking and breathing hard and his legs were jelly, so he let her tuck him close to her body and carry him into the apartment building, upstairs in the elevator, and into his apartment. It was nice even though he _was_ a gangly, bony, starveling animal. It was nice to be held like someone liked him. He could feel the steady rise and fall of her chest, the thump of her heartbeat, the brush of her breath across his fur. Her arms were very strong and solid. She smelt of raspberries and the leather of her jacket.

Buck was in his favourite armchair, reading.

“Hey,” he said, face lighting up when they came in, a glow of love laying over it so that Steve’s breath caught for reasons that had nothing whatever to do with possible cat-asthma, and Natasha said, “Hey yourself,” and then Bucky stood up and came over to them and she and he were kissing.

Wasn’t this a day for surprises.

Steve yowled in sheer astonishment. _Why didn’t you tell me_ , he wanted to yell, and also _how long has this been going on_ , and locked away in the nastiest corner of his mind, the bitter jealous corner, the one he kept six feet under and upside down, there twisted the thought that _of course Buck would get the girl I want even after the serum_. Or maybe that was _of course Nat would have him even after everything I did for him_. It was hard to tell. Steve’s head was a very confused place these days, he was well aware of that, and it was not helped in the least by that nasty resentful little voice. He stamped on it with vicious enthusiasm, even as they both looked down at him, grey-blue and grey-green eyes of the two people he loved most in the world focussed entirely on him. Again a bitter little whisper he tried to cut off at the knees: why did he need to be a _cat_ for this to happen, why. In Nat’s arms; both of them looking at him –

“Someone’s protective. Who’s this, then?” Buck reached out to pet him. Steve was irrationally tempted to scratch. While he was hesitating, Bucky’s warm hand landed on him, a long gentle stroke from his neck to his haunches, again and again. Ohhhhh, that was nice. Soothing. Comforting, like being carried by Natasha. Steve didn’t mind being touched by either of them, but this was better than didn’t mind. This was – he closed his eyes and relaxed into it: Natasha’s arms, Bucky’s hand, their bodies near and warm; safe. That was it. Steve hadn’t realised how badly he had needed to feel safe again.

“I’m calling him Liho,” said Natasha. “Poor little puss. I think he’s had a bad time of it.”

“Steve used to bring home strays,” Bucky said. “At least he did till he realised Aunt Sarah was allergic to cats.”

“Oh no.” Natasha smiled, snuggled Steve close. “Then what did he do with them?”

“Brought them to Mam.”

She laughed that warm, husky laugh. “Where is he?”

“Manhattan, Thor and Stark came by, asked for a hand with something.”

Steve froze up in horror. Thor had come by, yes. And there had been – oh no, oh crap, oh my god. He had wandered off a battlefield as a cat and not given another thought to Thor or Stark and _holy Mary mother of god he had left the shield lying in a Manhattan sidestreet_ next to an empty uniform, boots, helmet and (oh god) socks and boxer-briefs.

While Steve was in the throes of this agony of sudden remembrance Natasha had shifted him to one arm and opened the laptop. “…manage to make him sit still some time. Is he doing it on purpose? It’s driving me crazy.”

“Nah, he’s just clueless. I think we might have to cuff him to something.”

“Woo,” said Natasha. “I volunteer. Hey, what do cats need, do we bathe him?”

“Take him to the vet,” said Bucky. “Maybe get him neutered if you’re gonna keep him. He is a tom?”

“I haven’t checked yet,” Natasha said. “And I don’t know if I am keeping him. He was trying to jump onto this dumpster, weren’t you Puss, and was just so poor and pathetic –“

_Yes, yes_ , Steve thought tiredly. _Poor pathetic helpless Steve; if I can’t breathe for myself I can’t live for myself, it’s all one. No wonder neither of you – But so help me if you try and have me neutered I’ll bite your fingers off._ He narrowed his eyes at Bucky. He should have scratched him, oh yes. Neutered! Just let them try. He draped himself sulkily across Natasha’s shoulder and wondered if cats could pout. How on earth was he going to get them to check on Thor and Stark?

“He’s got blue eyes,” said Bucky. “That ain’t normal for a black cat.”

“No I don’t think so. Oh look – cat superstitions…”

“Maybe he’s a witch’s familiar.”

“Because of the eyes? I hope you leave a saucer of milk out on Halloween.”

Bucky grinned.

Natasha said, “Seriously?”

“Honestly it would not be the weirdest thing to have ever happened to me.”

That was true. Steve didn’t seem to be able to laugh, but he swished his tail as best he could and was rewarded with an ear-scratch from Bucky. “Hey, Puss, we’ll sort you out. Don’t worry about it…”

The hell of it was, Steve found he wasn’t worried, not about himself. He needed to know if Stark and Thor were OK, he needed his shield back and he needed a moment to get over the information that Bucky and Nat were – were A Thing – OK, several moments – but he wasn’t worried. He was, after all, safe home with Bucky. And Nat. Even asthma – oh, Morse code! Why hadn’t he thought of it before?

This was when the doorbell rang. As the visitor was Stark, he didn’t wait to be let in.

“All right everyone listen up,” he said, marching into the living room trailing armour and, for some reason, a computer print-out that shed pages the way Steve assumed he himself would soon be shedding fur, “Thor says everything’s fine and it shouldn’t be a problem to change him back and I need you not to freaking panic, OK, there is absolutely no reason to panic –“

“Change him back?” said Natasha blankly.

“Panic?” said Bucky.

Stark said, “Whoops! Uh.” Then he said, “Cap’s vanished.”

Alarmed, Steve tried making a noise, but he was determinedly shushed by Natasha. The look on Bucky’s face had gone from warily puzzled to stone-like almost before Stark had finished speaking. When he prised his lips apart and got words out he looked as though he would shatter if he moved. “Meaning?”

“This crazy magic-user,” said Stark. “I know, I know, magic, let’s not, I’ve had this argument with Thor, that’s why we came by to drag Cap out of this pit of a borough, we lost touch with him this afternoon and once the magic-user was safely under lock and key and not hurting people anymore we went through Manhattan with a fine-tooth comb and found his stuff in a side street inside the evacuation zone.”

“Found his stuff,” Natasha repeated. Abruptly Steve realised she was trembling. He wriggled and twisted, trying to get their attention, but she clamped her hands on him harder and didn’t look at him.

“Lying in the road like he’d been vanished out of it,” said Stark. “Uniform, helmet, shield, everything. Completely untouched.”

“Except that Steve wasn’t in it,” said Bucky.

“Except that,” Stark agreed. “Now Thor says he’s been turned into some kind of animal, which, when did you get a cat –“

Desperately Steve yowled again and tried supplementing this with a judicious amount of tail-waving.

All three of them looked at him.

And looked at him.

None of them being stupid, Steve felt he needed add no further input.

“Oh God,” said Natasha. “Look at his eyes…”

Bucky said, horrified, “ _Steve_?” and held out a hand to him.

Steve nudged his fingertips with his nose, over and over: y-e-s-s-o-r-r-y.

“ _Sorry_ ,” Bucky burst out with that exact look he used to have whenever Steve apologised for catching bronchitis again: namely, exasperated to his very bones.

Stark said, “How in god’s name did he get here? Do cats teleport now?”

+++

JARVIS didn’t speak cat, which Steve was quite disappointed by and Stark declared an irreparable mistake that needed to be repaired immediately, but it turned out that Steve could still use a touchscreen keyboard with his paws as long as you enlarged it enough. Bucky sat down opposite him and said, “Are you OK?” and Steve, sitting primly on his bony haunches, reached out a paw and with great concentration typed, _do cats get asthma_.

“Vet, now,” said Natasha. “NOW!”

Maria turned out to be in possession of a Labrador and a recommendation for a decent vet; Stark summoned her peremptorily to the Tower by means of a large wad of cash and pointed at Steve.

“Do cats get asthma?”

Summoned out of bed at one in the morning by a dictatorial and garrulous superhero billionaire, the vet, poor woman, floundered. “Uh, Mr Stark –“

“Everyone out,” said Bucky. “Let the woman look at him.” Then, directed at Steve and in a much sterner tone, “Let the woman look at you.”

Furious, Steve hissed at him. _Or what?_ How dared Bucky treat him like a child?

“Don’t play silly buggers with me,” Buck said, adopting the tone their mothers had used on recalcitrant and sulking boy-children both belonging to them and otherwise up and down the neighbourhood for nearly two decades. “This is for your own good and you know it.”

Pavlovian, the tone retained its power some ninety years later and out of the mouth of a disgusting hypocrite who had once been one of those very boys. Steve was angry, but he submitted.

+++

Vetinary examinations of cats were added to the Not Worth Dwelling On list with vehement prejudice.

+++

So was the bath.

+++

Blow-dried within an inch of his life, fur so fluffy it almost made up for how little flesh there was on his bones, and freshly emerged from the ridiculous box in which he’d had to sit to inhale the asthma medication, Steve curled up inside his shield on Stark’s workshop bench and directed a glower at Thor he only hoped had as much effect as it would have if he’d still had his serum body. It didn’t seem so – Thor looked, if anything, vaguely amused by the entire mess, which was deeply, deeply offensive to Steve. Really it was.

“I’m sorry, my friend,” he said. “I truly am. If it helps, this is neither an unusual nor an incurable affliction, I once spent two weeks as a dog myself. In the ordinary way the spell simply wears off; as indeed my own affliction did.”

“Tell me about the unordinary way,” said Bucky. He was leaning against another work table with his arms crossed over his chest, and if Steve knew Bucky at all (and Steve knew Bucky better than anyone else on the planet), he was busily compiling a mental list of ways to try killing an alien god with a blowtorch.

“Occasionally such spells have a sort of – release clause,” said Thor. “You have to fulfil certain conditions in order for them to fall away. Oh don’t worry, these things are very generic, be kind to ten people or true love’s kiss or suchlike.”

Natasha – perched next to Bucky on the worktable and chewing on her hair – said, “What would it take to make it less than generic?”

“A magic-user of considerably more talent than the one we faced today,” said Thor.

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

“Listen, Steve. I’ll put together a list of such conditions that you could try. And I shall call to Heimdall that the Lady Sif may consult with my mother’s ladies, who may offer a solution. But in the meantime I would suggest that you simply wait for it to wear off. It is sometimes dangerous to tamper with magic more than is necessary.”

“Well he’s always been real good at that,” said Bucky.

Steve laid his ears flat and hissed at him.

“Temper temper,” said Bucky.

“Don’t antagonise each other,” said Natasha. “Thanks, Thor.”

“It’s my fault,” said Thor. “I had not believed that our gifted friend was capable of this.”

Steve attempted a shrug of resigned forgiveness, but he wasn’t sure if it came off.

+++

Bucky and Natasha took him back to Brooklyn, thank God. He couldn’t have slunk around the Tower for more than an hour or two without going crazy, he was sure; the wooden floors and big open windows of his own apartment were infinitely more attractive to him. The sun fell right on the second armchair for most of the afternoon, he would curl up in it and sleep. Or maybe read, he could still read. Steve yawned happily and burrowed about a bit in the blanket he was held in, balanced on Bucky’s lap. The vibrations of the car engine were a pleasant hum through his body.

“Watch the claws,” said Bucky softly. Steve twisted enough to look up at him and Natasha, peering down at him anxiously. _I’m OK_ , he wanted to tell them, _I really am. Thank you for looking after me_. But of course he’d need to type it. Natasha stroked her hand down his back; then she snatched it back.

“I’m sorry – I shouldn’t’ve.”

Oh. Steve tried not to be disappointed. The vet had done her best to be gentle, but it had been awful, and he had thought back to the shelter of Nat’s arms with longing. Then she put her hand on his back, very lightly.

“Unless you like it?”

Steve sighed happily. Then he purred, as best he could manage, as she started to stroke his fur. She laughed. Bucky said, “Christ,” sounding hopelessly fond of her.

+++

But at home Steve began to get uneasy again. From his position on the seat of the couch he couldn’t even see them – Natasha and Bucky. They were away behind the armchair in the corner of the room. Everything was so much bigger, even his own home. He felt very small and very cold and very alone. And Bucky snapping at him earlier – and now he couldn’t even manage to get himself a meal if he was hungry. Well, he could hunt mice. There might conceivably be mice in the basement of the building. He’d cough them to death. How hard could it be?

He would’ve sniggered if he could have. He wasn’t Laura Fairlie; he was the lead in a soap opera, wallowing in his own misery… stupid of him. _Life’s a lot easier with a sense of humour_ , Ma had sometimes said, and then she would pull her mouth to one side in an exaggeratedly regretful expression and add, _but money helps more_. Steve uncurled himself and threw his new body into a stretch from tiptoes to tiptoes like a full-body yawn, happy that the warm ache of his muscles when he stretched them was the same whether he was human or cat. They were just… situated differently.

He could handle this. It wasn’t the first time he’d been stuffed into a new body and left to fend for himself. Admittedly the last one had come with far fewer inherent humiliations, but as Thor had said: it was only temporary. And Natasha and Bucky – they hadn’t been stepping out long, Steve was sure – they wouldn’t lie to him, and they didn’t deserve his temper tantrums, not for a second. He remembered the look on Bucky’s face when Natasha had come in earlier, and – casting his mind back over the last few hours – how frequently they had touched, how seldom they had been out of one another’s personal space. No, they deserved better from him than sulkiness, cat or not. He would not be so petty as to resent them for being happy. He wanted them to be happy. He loved them too much for anything else.

These noble resolutions arrived at, Steve rolled onto his back and wriggled experimentally, waving his paws. Hmm. This was kind of fun. Scratched the itch along his spine, too. He batted at thin air with his forepaws and watched his claws slide in and out, fascinated. He had a feeling he could do that all day. And he hadn’t examined his tail in any kind of detail yet either. He wrinkled his nose. Cats were fascinating. He already knew – from the wearying trek home from the subway station – that he could see in the dark really well, and that his sense of smell was acute. But that wasn’t different to his serum body. He needed to read up on cats, he decided, and went back to flexing his claws in wonder.

“Steve?” It was Bucky; he came round the armchair and sat on the coffee table set in front of the couch. It was called so mostly in courtesy, as the only things that ever really got put on it were people’s feet. “Uh. You look ridiculous?”

Steve sat up and looked haughty. Cats were naturally good at haughty even if Steve the person wasn’t.

Bucky grinned. “Hey, pal, listen. We’re gonna put… all the stuff in the junk room, OK?”

Oh god the… stuff. Steve was tempted to jump off the couch and crawl underneath it for the rest of his life. OK, fall off the couch. Whatever.

He waved his tail in an approximation of _sure yeah please stop talking about the litter box and the asthma treatment bucket. (But especially the litter box_.)

“And, uh, we’ll put the tablet on the floor in your room and you can…”

_I can make it onto the bed!_ Probably. Steve growled.

Bucky said, “OK, on the bed.”

Steve waved his tail.

Bucky shook his head at him.

+++

Perhaps predictably, Sam’s reaction (once he’d been assured it wasn’t permanent) was to laugh his ass off.

_Some friend you are_ , Steve thought disgustedly. Though he had to admit that if it had happened to anyone else…

“I’ll help you with your magic fairy tale conditions,” Sam promised, chuckling. “How many princesses gotta kiss you?”

“I think finding a way to do ten kindnesses for people when you’re a cat is probably more difficult,” said Buck.

“We’ll think of something,” Sam said, and starting laughing again.

+++

By the time they finally went to bed sunrise was less than an hour away. Steve lay prone on top of the covers of his bed and watched the grey light growing behind his curtains for as long as he could bear to. Then he gave up in despair and went next door, moving silent as a ghost. Bucky was lying on his back, flesh hand hanging off the edge of the mattress at the wrist; Natasha’s head was a tumble of red on his chest. The angle made her arm, flung across Bucky’s hips, seem to protrude directly from under her hair.

The bottom dropped out of Steve’s stomach. For a moment he lost his courage. Then he drew a deep breath and gathered himself to jump. He landed, gracelessly, on their knees, and purred with self-satisfaction.

Bucky said, “The hell,” and Natasha swore, but when they saw him they made room for him, a nest of body-warm duvet right in between them.

“Because of course he’s a cat,” said Natasha, as grumpy as Steve had ever heard her.

“Maybe I’m cursed,” said Bucky. “I never considered that before.”

Mrs Voronov. Steve nodded judiciously, even as Bucky scritched his ears with gentle fingers, and then Natasha sat up, a quick, jerky movement, and bent her head to kiss Steve between the ears. He swallowed hard. Her hair smelt nice.

“Sleep well,” she said.

He tucked himself more firmly in and purred at both of them until they drifted off again.

+++

Breakfast was impossible. Yesterday’s good resolutions were being sorely tested already. Steve crouched miserably over the bowl and cast his mind back to the first pleasant memory that came to him – it was a trick he’d learned in the war, a kind of putting his body on automatic while his mind went away from the actual sights in front of him. Usually he thought about Ma, her smile and her songs in their narrow, dingy kitchen; sometimes he thought of Peggy or of the sheer glee he still felt when he went out in the mornings and was able to run flat-out through the neighbourhoods and parks without collapsing. Now, squinting resentfully at the food under his nose, he went back to Natasha kissing the top of his head earlier, and the warmth that radiated out from Bucky’s skin.

Perhaps it was because of that that he climbed into Nat’s lap when he came out of the guest room to join them. They were both on the couch, sitting close, bent over the laptop – had Thor sent some information? Steve was suddenly too tired to care. He hadn’t really slept that much. And – were cats nocturnal? They might be… Natasha caught him up and held him on her lap like he belonged there. Steve fell across her thighs and started purring again when she scratched his ears. Ohhhhhhh. Nobody had ever told him it felt so good to be touched by people. No wonder everyone made such a fuss about sex.

“According to Thor ‘sit still and wait’ is still looking like the best plan we’ve got,” Bucky said to him. “He says his people say two weeks is a pretty standard time length for a spell like this, but that’s Asgardian weeks and they’ve got nine days, so if you’re still a cat after eighteen days, we’ll worry.”

_You’re worried now_ , Steve thought, looking at Bucky’s tight pale face. He stretched to put his front paws on Bucky’s thigh, and Buck sighed and put his right hand on Steve’s back.

“Sorry I snapped at you last night,” he said. “You terrified me.”

Steve blinked slowly. Then he started purring in acknowledgment.

Natasha said, “Hey, I was terrified too.”

“Yeah but you only yelled at Stark,” said Bucky.

“Stark always deserves yelling at,” Natasha agreed.

+++

That was the thing people didn’t get, though – not the yelling at Stark – the thing about Steve and Bucky – well, one of the things: Steve would never be over the fact that the 21st century seemed to believe he had never killed a man – anyway, that was the thing about Steve and Bucky, and particularly about Bucky, that people had been getting wrong since they were four and would still get wrong, presumably, centuries after their deaths:

Bucky Barnes was not the sensible one. The first time Stark had flung a screwdriver across a room and pointed at Bucky with a tragic expression and yelled, _I thought you were the sensible one_ , Natasha had laughed so hard she’d cried. Bucky was not sensible. Sometimes he pretended because he thought it was funny, but he was not the voice of reason, or the grown-up, or the caretaker.

What this meant, of course, was that on those rare occasions when he did tell Steve to sit down and shut up, metaphorically speaking, it was best to take him very seriously indeed. He’d told Steve not to enlist – and look what had happened when he had. (He had also said not to go near Mrs Voronov’s washing line.) The fact that he was now sat on the couch in the living room and saying bluntly, _you terrified me_ , meant that he really had been worried to death, and still was, and that Steve –

Steve didn’t actually know what. Hadn’t he caused Bucky enough grief already? When he got serum-body back he was going to have a thing or two to say to the sorcerer’s apprentice in the CIA holding cell for doing this to him, he swore.

+++                                                                         

In the meantime Steve had at least eighteen days of cat-hood to fill with meaning and amusements.

Yay.

+++

Everyone agreed it was a bad idea to leave him alone for long stretches of time. There was the magic, for one thing, and the asthma, for another, and any number of things that could go wrong now he couldn’t talk. Nat and Bucky both being in possession of actual, real lives that went beyond their friendship with Steve, he got passed around the New York-based Avengers like a party favour.

A party favour that needed baby-sitting.

Pepper let him poke about her office and sit on her desk; she said it was awfully good of him to keep her company, and that she’d felt like Blofeld all day. Steve thought it was dreadfully good of _her_ to help him feel less bored – she did all sorts of interesting things, Pepper – and there was also the fact that he made an inappropriately gangly, bony sort of alley cat, not suitable office décor for someone like her at all.

Maria bought him one of those cat-jungle-gym things, and Steve was so amused he actually used it once or twice. Thor used him as a sounding-board for his discoveries of Midgardian cultures; as this had always been an aspect of their comfortable friendship Steve almost felt most at ease with Thor of everyone. He just sat and listened and occasionally typed a clarification. Plus, Thor told the most fantastic stories, and while he seemed to regard it as something close to sacrilege that sagas such as _Beowulf_ had ever been written down, he could be persuaded to read it for you, and then, well. That was an experience and a half.

Sam was Sam; he took Steve wherever he wanted to go and let him poke around the VA for hours, just as Pepper had. Steve liked that too. Some of the soldiers there seemed to like to see him and pet him; Steve sat still for them in a way he would not for anyone else but Bucky and Natasha. Sam’s aunt Dahlia – his mother’s sister – had owned more cats in her time than Steve had had hot dinners (…then again, that wasn’t hard) and had reams of good advice to give to Sam, intending he should pass it on to Bucky and Natasha, that Steve had mostly ignored because it involved cat-things that real cats did. And when Sam told his mother that Steve was ill she whipped up a giant pot of chicken soup and made Sam take it out to Brooklyn, where Natasha was only too happy to receive it and Bucky put half in the freezer so Steve could have it when he changed back.

“No mouse-chasing instincts?” Sam asked once.

Steve rolled his eyes.

Sam snickered.

Stark had just said, “OK, I’m officially freaked out now,” (which Steve suspected was a quote from somewhere as he found it hard to imagine that Stark hadn’t been freaked out from the start of this) and banned him from the workshop. This was no kind of problem. The workshop was a fascinating place, especially if Jane had brought her research and star maps and stuff, but Steve was a little worried that Stark’s bots, in their semi-sentient state, might decide he needed exterminating.

+++

Nat didn’t always stay over. Whether she was there or not, every night Steve padded into Bucky’s room and settled on the bed next to him, nestled close to the lines of his body, soaking up his warmth. If Nat was there, he slept right in between them. When she wasn’t he stayed awake for longer than usual, missing her light breathing and the smell of the raspberry lotion she always used.

+++

Nobody ever hauled him around without his permission – he appreciated that, he was not, after all, transformed into a cuddly toy – but if Steve was circling round the apartment looking for entertainment and happened upon Bucky or Natasha’s empty laps... and if, you know, sometimes he let Natasha carry him about the apartment with her, or if he liked to climb precariously onto Bucky’s shoulders wherever he happened to be sitting, well, Steve had been magically transmogrified into a small and sickly feline. It was very traumatising. He needed lots and lots of human contact to make him feel grounded and safe. Lots.

He was going to feel absolutely terrible about this bit of convolutedly-justified selfishness when he changed back.

Even worse, he was going to have to stop.

+++

He was tired all the time, and he frequently had zero appetite even though he knew perfectly well that he needed to eat. That should have been familiar to Steve, but he had managed to forget all about it. But the asthma attacks –! Steve’s memory of those turned out to be untarnished and unembellished: they were exactly as bad and as humiliating as he recalled them. Whenever he thought about leaving the apartment alone for a while the spectre of an asthma attack loomed up before him and boxed him in. He wouldn’t have one in public, he just wouldn’t. That was always – collapsing in the middle of a grocer’s or on the street, gasping for air like a fish on dry land while everyone gathered around to gawk at him under the guise of helpfulness – that was always the worst.

It wasn’t as if any of it had ever done any good. The other thing that had ever done any real good was Ma.

+++

He never did quite manage to remember what happened with the sorcerer’s apprentice. Straining his memory brought the idea that something had hit him in the chest, and that someone had said something to him – something like _you again?_ Or _not you?_ But he wasn’t sure. The whole scene seemed to have been neatly excised out of his brain.

Steve didn’t really mind. He was fairly sure he hadn’t enjoyed it, whatever had happened.

+++

Bucky took it all in stride, just as if it were the nineteen-thirties and Steve had contracted some more unusual bug in addition to the ordinary ailments. He talked to Steve the same way as ever, he handled the cat-accoutrements with the same nonchalant shrug he’d handled human medicine and blankets and the occasional hour in the freezing communal privy of the building, tucking a throw over Steve’s shoulders and waiting for the vomiting fit to pass.

Even if Steve had been capable of speech he wouldn’t have had words to explain how much he appreciated it. Sometimes he thought back to that skinny boy in the cheap clothes and the bad haircut and experienced a suspicion that that boy had been an arrogant little ingrate.

He had certainly never got cuddles. God that sounded weird, even to himself, but – and he really was going to have to stop and it was stupid of him to do it at all – but it wasn’t like Bucky didn’t know perfectly well it was still _Steve_ in here, four legs and tail or otherwise – but – but. Take now. Bucky at the kitchen table, reading and drinking coffee; a breeze was coming through the open window and the smell of rain with it, ghosting along the floor and making Steve shiver, and Bucky’s lap was right there, all warm and –

“Hey,” said Bucky, and switched his book from right hand to left so he could scratch Steve’s ears without his fur catching in the rills of his fingers.

Steve had no self-control, no self-restraint, and very little self-respect. Oh god it felt good. Had he always been this tactile and just never known it? And body heat, body heat was amazing, because it was so _personal_. Someone was holding you and keeping you warm because they loved you just that much.

The manner was less important than the fact of it.

“I keep meaning to say to you,” Bucky said, and Steve raised his head from Bucky’s thigh curiously. Buck was looking down at him, fond but serious. “Nat and me.”

Oh. Steve flicked his tail in what he hoped would be understood as a sufficient gesture of approval.

“It’s only been a couple weeks,” Bucky said.

Steve knew that. It was nice to hear it, though. But apparently there was more.

“We’d have told you,” he went on, “but you’ve never been around.”

That wasn’t fair. Steve lived here, where else would he be?

“Hanging with Junior and Thor.”

Junior was Stark, because Bucky was an asshole who had never really liked Howard. Steve wanted to protest, but, well, Thor had only been in town for a few weeks, and they were friends, and he liked spending time with him, and OK, maybe he had been out a lot.

Hang on. Was Bucky jealous? _You know you’re still my bestest best friend_ , Steve thought amusedly, and couldn’t keep his tail from flicking again in a lazy back-and-forth rhythm that probably got his thoughts across perfectly. Bucky had never been jealous of Sam, but very early on he had put Sam in the same category as the Commandos – _BFF, trust absolutely_ – and had never seen much of Thor.

“I miss you,” Bucky said cheerfully, easily, like it was no kind of deal, like – like nothing had happened, ever, to make this different; like he was standing outside the school gates waiting for Steve on a Monday morning after he’d been at home in bed a week, swinging that old brown leather satchel negligently by the handle; he could hit bullying assholes like Willie Thompkins in the goolies with that thing and make it look like an accident in front of Sister Mary Margaret and Father MacKinnon and not only his own Mam but Steve’s Ma as well, without turning a hair.

It had been this ability, when it was eventually discovered, that had prompted Father MacKinnon to declare he’d swing before he was thirty, and Bucky’s Mam had slapped him (she was a Presbyterian, she didn’t much care about hitting priests), and – anyway. _I miss you,_ easy as that. If this was karmic retribution for Mrs Voronov’s washing line, Steve was tempted to say he’d do it again just to get back at the miserable witch. He wanted to be human for this; he wanted to sit next to Buck and say, _I miss you when you’re not around_ , and _I love you_ , and all the other things that had never seemed to need saying till Buck was gone.

“I can get by just fine without seeing your stupid face every day, but I don’t much like to have to.”

Steve shivered. Yeah. That – yeah. He didn’t need – he always had tried his damnedest not to need Bucky, but need and love were two different things, no matter what the movies told you, and he had always loved Bucky; always would love him. When Bucky dropped his hand from Steve’s head to his own thigh he trapped Buck’s thumb between his paw and licked his fingers, quick soft flicks of his tongue across scarred flesh. HYRDA had burnt his fingerprints off years ago, the skin rough, raised and white in patches.

Bucky jumped. Steve stopped, eyes wide.

“Sorry,” Buck said. “They’re sensitive. Dunno why. Shouldn’t have any feeling there at all.” His shoulder was sensitive too, Steve was fairly sure. Bucky wouldn’t let him help with it, though, even provided there was actually something Steve could do. Maybe that was why. He dropped his head into Bucky’s palm and – yawned hugely.

Bucky laughed. “Yeah,” he said. “Go on, go to sleep. I don’t need to be anywhere.”

+++

Twelve days in.

“He says he didn’t do it,” said Thor, “and I believe him.”

“Well of course he says he didn’t do it,” said Stark. “Who’s gonna admit to turning Captain America into a bony-looking and un-aristocatic cat?”

Nat bristled. “He’s a lovely cat.”

_Thank you, Tasha_. Steve slunk across the workshop table and rubbed happily up against Natasha’s arms where she had folded them on the table-top.

“You’ve got no idea about cats, do you,” said Stark.

Sam said, “Since when do you?”

“Excuse you, my mother had four,” said Stark. “Shed all over everything.” He paused there for a few seconds, apparently to contemplate his memories of the cats. “Great-Aunt Guiseppina gave ‘em to her. She hated the sight of ‘em.”

“Great-Aunt Guiseppina hated the cats?”

“No, my mother did. Wasn’t too fond of Great-Aunt Guiseppina, either.”

Everyone smiled. Stark looked, very faintly, smug. Steve watched him thoughtfully, only vaguely aware his tail was lashing back and forth until Natasha tugged on it.

“Quit it.”

Indignant, he pulled away from her and sat down prissily on his haunches next to Bucky instead. Fine then. He didn’t care that she sniggered at him, either. Bucky scratched his ears absent-mindedly and said, “Why?”

Everyone stared.

He huffed and nodded at Thor. “Why do you believe him?”

“Oh!” Thor pulled a face. “Well – I said on the day I did not think he had the power to transmute matter, particularly living beings. I’m not sure I was wrong. If he says he didn’t do it…”

“Accidentally?” (Here was another thing everyone got wrong about Bucky: they always thought the rapid monosyllabic snaps in briefings and missions were a hold-over from the Winter Soldier. When Bucky had stopped talking in full sentences in mission briefings Steve had been so relieved he’d locked himself in the men’s room after and nearly started crying there and then. Bucky didn’t bother with full sentences when he trusted his team. He expected them to know his mind before he had to speak it.)

Thor took the question seriously. “Poss-ib-ly,” he said at last. “But accidental magic is highly uncommon, you know, if the user has had experience and training. Children sometimes produce it, but…”

“Alternate theories?”

No one offered one. Well, there was always Mrs Voronov. Maybe some descendant. But Steve and Bucky had always got on well with her granddaughter Tatiana. (Especially Bucky.)

Steve refused to show it, but he was getting a little freaked out.

+++

“You’re getting freaked out, aren’t you,” said Natasha. How she got her hands into the pockets of a pair of jeans that fit her like a second skin was beyond Steve’s ken. He had seen her getting into them this morning – by accident! – and it had involved a lot of encouraging curse-words and a certain amount of jumping up and down while she yanked on the waistband.

Steve wasn’t judging. He had a certain appreciation for that particular pair of jeans, or he did when he was human.

_No_ , he thought at her very firmly, and squirmed about in the hope that she would take the hint – he wanted a nap – and leave.

She didn’t. She came across the room and lay down next to him on the floor.

Steve looked away.

“Sweetheart,” Natasha said, and her fun-loving frat bro Nat persona could drop nicknames the way leaves fell off the trees in October, but this was something else entirely. “If you want to persuade me you’re doing OK you might want to come out of your shield.”

Steve curled into a ball defiantly and tucked his tail underneath himself. The shield rocked a bit, but he’d wedged a blanket under one half of it and that kept it fairly stable.

Natasha put her cool thin hand on his back. “We’re doing everything we can, you know,” she whispered.

Steve did know. He wasn’t ridiculous enough to think they didn’t love him, weren’t desperately worried for him, and he tried to purr in answer – and reassurance – but it didn’t come out very well: sort of choked.

“I miss your voice,” Natasha said. “Isn’t that stupid? You’re right here, and you’re still you, but I miss the sound of your voice.”

So did Steve. He rolled about till he was facing her, but oh, what good would it do? He couldn’t speak to her and he couldn’t put his arms round her, and wouldn’t have the right even if he could. She smiled at him, an awful sad twist of her mouth; but for all that it was a real and genuine smile, and Steve’s breath stuttered the way it always did when she gave him one of those, because – because he was having an asthma attack.

Great. For a moment he wanted to scream; then he was too focussed on keeping breathing to notice, though not so focussed he couldn’t wish, dizzily but fervently, that Nat would vanish – that she would leave him alone – he’d escaped it so far and didn’t want her to see him so weak – she’d been taking care of him since they’d met and it wasn’t fair to – her hands snatched him up, grip too tight with anxiety, and Steve twisted with pain and breathlessness and a sudden starburst of humiliation: wasn’t it bad enough that Buck and Peggy had both seen him like this, were none of the people he loved to be spared this, couldn’t any of them stop fucking gawking and looming pityingly over the poor pathetic Rogers boy, and it wasn’t till she cried out that he realised he’d scratched her hands.

“Ah!” She’d taken bullets and looked less shocked, made less noise. Steve’s horror at himself just made the asthma attack worse. The blood had left her face; then, suddenly, she said, “You stupid bastard, why can’t you ever practice what you preach,” and lifted him again, carrying him into the junk room and pushing him gently into the asthma treatment chamber and mask.

+++

When it was all over Steve came into the living room, rather shakily, and jumped onto the coffee table opposite where she sat on the couch. Her hands lay curled on her lap, angry red scratches across them. He hadn’t broken the skin.

Natasha said, “Come to say you’re sorry?” The look on her face was somewhere between blank hurt and resignation. Steve couldn’t stand the knowledge that he’d put it there – that he had made her upset like this. “You don’t have to. I know how trustworthy I’m not.” She smiled at him, sharp but wobbling at the edges. Steve jumped into her lap at once. _That’s not it; that’s not it at all, Nat my Nat, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I hate that I’ve made you think that_. He bent his head and licked at the thin red welts across her hands, over and over. He was the one who couldn’t be trusted, who was hurting her, and it wasn’t fair, it wasn’t, he loved her so fucking much.

The whole world spun. Was he having another asthma attack? His knees hit the floor with an awful thump. Natasha cried his name, her rich lovely voice all shocked and delighted – as if he was hearing it for the first time in weeks – then the throw-rug from the back of the couch fell round his shoulders. He clutched at it with both hands, shaking. His head was spinning and his vision was blurry. Natasha, kneeling in front of him: her red hair bright in the afternoon sun. Natasha.

Wait.

He had hands.

Blinking, Steve looked down at himself. The room – actually, it didn’t spin. He would have liked it to, he thought. Naked as the day he was born, and in the same body too. He wasn’t in the least surprised. He should have been, perhaps, but he wasn’t.

“Say something,” said Natasha. Her hands were clamped on his shoulders. She was peering at him anxiously.

Steve cleared his throat. “Tasha, I’m so sorry I hurt you,” he rasped. “I hate people seeing – it’s awful – especially people I – you shouldn’t have to. It’s all on me. I’m sorry.”

Her eyes went wide. Then she said, “I take it back. Better silence than bullshit,” and flung her arms around his neck. Gripping the rug around himself with one hand, he put the other arm around her, awkwardly.

“Need a doctor,” she said quietly. “Asthma inhaler.”

Yes. Yes, they had them now. And a cure for TB, and antibiotics for bronchitis. Bucky could have the shield. Someone should. Steve rested his forehead against Natasha’s shoulder and sighed.

“I need a shower,” he said.

She started laughing. “You kind of do, yeah. Don’t move, I’m calling James.” She took her hand off his back; there was a clatter as she groped about on the coffee table and found her phone. When he answered she skipped all the preliminaries. “Steve’s back.”

“Back!” Even without enhanced hearing Steve could hear Bucky just fine. “Back how?”

“Properly back,” he said, knowing Bucky could hear him too.

There was a short silence. Then Bucky said, “OK. I’ll rustle up some asthma medication, just in case. I’m on my way. What do you want for dinner?”

When he arrived Steve was on the couch, hands wrapped around a mug of steaming coffee. He was wearing a pair of Nat’s sweats and one of Bucky’s shirts – which was cheating, since they wore the same size these days. What the hell.

Bucky stopped short in the middle of the room, staring. Steve looked up and pulled a face.

“Yeah, so.”

“Thank god you’re all right,” said Bucky.

“Ahaha,” Steve said gloomily. “I’ve still got asthma.”

Bucky’s whole body made a movement like he was about to go to him, swaying forwards and then jerking back after all. Steve would’ve welcomed a hug. Bucky clenched his hand at his side and said, “You’re all right,” again.

Steve nodded. To all intents and purposes, he was right as rain. But (selfish) he wanted that hug. He put the coffee mug down and stood up, which was permission enough for Bucky, and – and it was so familiar it made him dizzy, his face against Bucky’s shoulder, looking up at him again from the old known angle, the strength and solidity next to him: like a homecoming. Suddenly he thought, _Bucky’s alive, he’s really alive_ , and had to fist his hands in the jacket Buck was still wearing to keep himself steady.

“I’m here,” Bucky said quietly. And, “You don’t know how good it is to have your stupid face back.”

Oh but Steve did. They were both smiling when they drew apart. “Yeah,” Steve said again, and Bucky’s hand was warm and tight on his shoulder, that same steadying grip. Steve sighed, wry and relieved at once, and smiled at him wider.

+++

Natasha and Bucky took over phoning everyone and reassuring them as to Steve’s human body and state of health; Steve went to bed. He felt wrung out and exhausted, and very cold.

The shield lay where he had left it, wobbling on its apex with one blanket underneath it and another inside it. He tossed both blankets in his laundry basket and took the shield up in both hands. Weight and balance were the same, he knew: it was he who had changed. But he felt as if someone had crept in and replaced the shield while he wasn’t looking. Everything was off. He could hold the weight, but it took a level of concentration he hadn’t needed since 1943 to settle the shield on his arm, walk about the bedroom with it. The straps were too big for his thinner wrist and arm and bit into his flesh uncomfortably. Steve stood by the window and hefted it for a few minutes. He’d give it to Bucky tomorrow. If he could stand to.

After that, sleep was no good. Steve curled up under his duvet, the pile of blankets his serum-body didn’t need but his mind appreciated. The weight on him was pleasant; he imagined himself being pressed gently into the mattress, held and comforted –

Hell.

And, he realised suddenly, he had just spent the last two weeks being a very persistent cockblock, holy god. They had the bedroom to themselves again and were probably – never had he thought he’d be grateful not to have his serum-body, just to escape the enhanced hearing. Steve groaned into the pillow, trying to beat the thought out of his mind, and as he dragged the covers over his head the bedroom door opened.

It was Buck, naked to the waist and smiling faintly. Steve swallowed. It had taken him a while to get past the ugly scars of Bucky’s left shoulder, the guilt he felt for them, but these days his appreciation of Bucky’s naked chest was whole-hearted and enthusiastic, and also really, really inappropriate.

“You OK?”

“Uh,” Steve said intelligently. “Can’t sleep.”

“Thought so,” said Bucky, turning his head, and had Nat been sleeping in his shirts all week? Steve couldn’t think. Cats missed a lot, seemingly. She closed the bedroom door, and Steve heard her feet against the wooden floor as she came around the bed to the opposite side to Bucky. Then they were both climbing in with him.

“What,” Steve said, eloquent as ever.

“Go to sleep, Steve,” Natasha said, manhandling him into the position she wanted him in, which, it turned out, was the little spoon. This put him mostly face to face with Bucky. The metal arm shone dully in the light from behind the curtains. Natasha smelt of raspberries. Bucky’s shower gel was something citrus-y. After a moment he leaned up to shove a couple of the blankets down; their combined body heat was not inconsiderable. Steve closed his eyes against the shadowy, half-imagined ripple of muscle six inches in front of his nose. Thank god he was too exhausted for – for anything really embarrassing to happen. Natasha’s bare legs were tangled with his own. Their hands – Bucky and Nat’s – met at Steve’s hip and stayed there, a steady weight on him.

Held and comforted. Safe.

Ten minutes later, Steve was asleep.

+++

When he woke up it was mid-morning, judging by the fall of light. Steve was flat on his back; Natasha was propped up on one elbow, looking down at him and smiling.

“Morning,” she said softly.

“Hey.” Bucky’s arm was flung across his chest and one of his legs was pressing Steve’s into the mattress. Steve couldn’t – read: didn’t want to – move much, but he thought Bucky was still asleep. “You sleep OK?”

Natasha’s smile got wider. “Yeah.”

OK, look. Steve was a lot of things that people frequently summarised under the heading of ‘stupid’: reckless, for example, and idealistic, stubborn, loud-mouthed – the list was long – but he wasn’t unintelligent, and he wasn’t unobservant, and he knew the two people in the bed with him right now better than he knew anyone on earth, anyone at all.

He felt as if something in the world had gone _click_ , a lock snapping shut on him, trapping him for good and all exactly where he belonged. Steve reached up slowly and slid his fingers into the tangles hanging over Natasha’s shoulder: he had always loved her hair. Heavy with knots and slightly greasy, it was thick and soft and twined around his fingers beautifully. She was biting her bottom lip, eyes shining.

Sure of his welcome, Steve tugged her down to kiss her. It was – well at least partly awful, because they both tasted dreadful – but morning breath and dry lips aside, Natasha’s mouth was warm and wet on his, and she took charge of him without hesitation or restraint, light and then deeper, teasing or passionate, leading by example till Steve had a pretty good idea of how she liked best to be kissed, and it hadn’t even been ten minutes. He closed his eyes and sighed into it, low and happy. She was mostly on top of him now, her leg pressing against Bucky’s, her hair tickling his shoulder and neck. He could feel the warmth and curve of her breasts against his chest, and the quick flick of her tongue was driving him crazy trying to chase it. She moaned when he caught her head in both his hands and took the kiss deeper, leaning up to explore and tease and caress and suck, curiously, on her tongue; oh she loved that, he could feel her shiver from head to toes.

Beside them, Bucky made a noise in his chest like – well, like a cat purring. “What a sight to wake up to.” His voice rumbled along all Steve’s nerves and lit them up like the Rockefeller Centre at Christmastime.

Natasha chuckled against his mouth when she felt him tremble. “It gets worse, trust me.”

Worse was relative. Oh god, did Bucky talk a lot in bed? Steve would not survive it, he just wouldn’t.

“Don’t tell me that,” he said, and when she pulled away to laugh Bucky took over. Stubble: that was different, and his mouth was wider than Natasha’s, his lips thinner but still full and warm. Steve kissed Bucky the way Natasha had kissed him, and that went over well, seemingly, except that Bucky liked to bite, gentle little nips on Steve’s bottom lip that absolutely took him apart.

“Quick study,” Natasha breathed in his ear, teasing, and if it weren’t for the prosthetic Steve would not have been sure which of them he was hanging on to. He was shaking, and his breath was coming quick and fast, and he was warm all over, beginning to ache; he twisted underneath them and his legs fell open so that Bucky’s thigh dropped between his, which was _delicious_. The sounds Buck was making – contended little hums that turned into a growl when Steve worried his bottom lip gently; the noise of them kissing, wetter and messier than with Natasha, who was pressing kisses all along the neckline of his t-shirt. She was still propped up on one elbow, but her other hand had gone exploring, cool against his waist and abdomen, pushing up under his shirt. She didn’t seem to care in the least that his abs had vanished. He was so – this was – if the building got shelled right now he would die happy, he would. He had to close his eyes against it, against the light in their faces.

Thoroughly drunk on kisses, it took Steve a few seconds to realise that the stomach he could hear grumbling with hunger was his own.

“Uh. Never mind me, I’m fine?”

“Kind of hungry myself,” Bucky admitted. Steve wanted to pin him down and kiss the laugh-lines around his eyes.

“So we’ll do this later,” said Natasha, her breath hot against Steve’s clavicle. She kissed his jaw and sat up, shaking her hair back. “We’re not running out of time.”

Unless this wore off by midnight and Steve turned into a cat again. “Wait,” he said, levering himself up onto his elbows. “You two – I wanna see.”

They both looked at him, something sharp and warm and happy in their faces; then Bucky reached across his chest and cupped Natasha’s jaw to draw her close, his fingers in her hair. She put her hands on his jaw and cheeks as they kissed, smiling, ease of practice behind it, Natasha’s eyes half-closed, Bucky’s open and shining: “ _Oh_ ,” said Steve, and swallowed hard.

Natasha said, “Breakfast,” very firmly and Bucky kissed her again and rolled out of bed, laughing.

+++

The medical examination at the Tower was both thorough and depressingly familiar, and turned up nothing Steve could not have told the doctors himself: weak heart, weak lungs, chronic mild asthma. He was relieved to learn he wasn’t malnourished, though apparently in need of sleep. When they scuttled out to report to his – his lovers? and his friends, he slid off the table and dressed slowly, watching his own movements in the mirror over the sink in the corner. Was he different? His hair was cut short and teased up and forwards – Natasha had done it – she had opinions about his hair. His face seemed fuller than he remembered, and while he was unquestionably skinny, he did think he was… well, fatter.

Odd. Then again, he did age, and he’d had his serum-body for… nearly eight years? Or seventy. Steve always had trouble counting them. He didn’t know how to reckon his age, either, which was why he always told people he was ninety-eight (in contrast to Bucky, who had decided he was thirty last year and had started counting fresh from there). No, but your real age, Sam had said once, frustrated, and Steve had said, well I was born in 1918, and maybe Sam had seen something in his face, because he’d never asked since.

Upstairs in the living room Stark, Thor, Sam, Natasha and Bucky were scattered around the room trying not to look as if they were hovering. Steve sighed. Of the lot, only Bucky was succeeding.

“What’s the damage?” he said, the way he always did.

“The usual,” said Steve, the way he always did.

“All right then. Let’s go home.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” said Stark.

Everyone looked at him.

“That’s it?”

“Well,” said Steve, more resigned than testy, “unless you’ve got a machine in there somewhere” – he jerked his thumb over his shoulder in the general direction of the elevator to Stark’s workshop – “that can bring Erskine back to life and give me the serum back this instant, it kind of is, yeah.” He couldn’t face that yet, the long slog back to a body that would let him be useful again, the research and the dead ends and – let’s face it – the pain. It could wait, wait a day at least. He wanted a day.

Stark crossed his arms over his chest, but he didn’t say anything else.

Steve said, “Look, we’ll go over it tomorrow. I want to talk to the kid as well.”

“Tomorrow,” Stark said. “All right.”

“Well,” Thor said, and smiled, “either way, it is good to have you back, my friend.”

Steve smiled back. “It’s a relief to be able to talk again, I can tell you that much.”

Natasha grinned.

+++

Outside the Tower they came to a halt on the steps above the pavement, watching the passing cabs and pedestrians; it had started to rain gloomily while they were inside, a thin drizzle that would’ve had Steve catching cold in an hour at home, and still might even despite central heating systems.

“So!” said Bucky. Something about the timbre of his voice was – Steve drew a breath. Glee and devilry – did he really have to be like _this_ for Bucky to – but that was stupid. Steve was the one doing the moping, and Bucky was dealing with it the same way he always did.

“No,” he said very firmly and knew he didn’t mean it.

“Come on,” Bucky said, grinning. “Don’t tell me you don’t wanna know.”

Steve eyed him up and down, from the toes of his boots (even in summer Bucky wore boots, a habit of protection he and Nat had in common) to the glint in his eye: amused, and cajoling, and a little bit challenging.

“Know what,” he said.

“If you’ve still got it.”

Steve felt sucker-punched. Gawping, he rocked back on his heels for a second. Then he got right back in Buck’s face and said, “What makes you think I ain’t?”

Buck said, “Terms and conditions?”

“Winner buys dinner,” said Steve. “Loser explains –” but then he had to stop. Loser explained to their mothers, usually.

“Loser cleans house for a month,” said Bucky.

“The hell you have planned?”

“Well,” said Bucky, putting on that pretentious fake-limey accent he hauled out whenever he was well on his way to thoroughly and completely fucking you off, “I have been informed by a variety of sources, chief among them Howard’s ridiculous spawn in there, that in this city there are to be found certain facilities that… cater to assholes like us whose idea of a good time is going out and shooting at each other.”

Steve was bewildered.

Sam said, “Laser tag? _Laser tag_?” and then he started laughing.

“Pick your team, Chair Force,” said Bucky challengingly.

“Natasha’s with me,” Steve said at once. Whatever laser tag was in the specifics, he wasn’t stupid enough to pass that up.

Sam said, “I’m hurt, Cap, I am, how dare you,” and Steve said, “Well, she’s smarter than you are,” and Bucky jumped down the steps to hail a cab, and Natasha said, “See, this is how you pay a girl a compliment,” and kissed him – kissed him right on the street in front of God and JARVIS and Sam and half of Manhattan.

He didn’t know why he had thought she wouldn’t, but oh it felt good.

+++

Laser tag was genuinely the stupidest thing Steve had ever done, and somewhere in the back of his mind there was a diary entry percolating that started out with the words _I can’t believe they made a military training tool into a game where you pretend to shoot people for shits and giggles_ , but he and Natasha won by a mile, so what the hell.

He did, as it turned out, still have it, or at least the parts of it that involved thinking before he shot at people.

Which begged another question.

“Ahaha,” said Natasha the second time he blocked her punch. “Muscle memory.”

“They’re different muscles,” Steve said, puzzled. “Kind of.”

“Don’t be an idiot, of course they’re not,” said Natasha. “Come on, again.” She bounced, easily, on the balls of her feet. Steve braced himself. He wasn’t anywhere near as quick and he knew it.

“I feel like I’m moving through molasses.”

“You’re thinking about it too much,” she said. “Close your eyes or something.”

“Feel the Force, Luke,” said Steve.

Her hand flicked towards his face, graceful, slower than usual, demonstrative. Steve turned it aside, stepped in, kicked out. His balance was all wrong, but he recovered in time to block the elbow she threw at his head – or try, at least: this had the whole force of her body behind it and though he took it on his lower arm and not his temple his arm bent like a twig and he scrambled back and slammed into somebody’s car.

“Once more with feeling,” Natasha said, beckoning.

Steve straightened up, groaning. “Easy for you to say. I feel like I’ve been run over by a Panzer tank already.”

She sighed. “You’re only talking yourself into incompetence. Come _on_ , put your back into it.”

Steve swung at her before she’d finished the sentence: high then low, ducked her answer, dodged a kick, sent one back, they circled each other, moving and dodging away, and after a few more quick exchanges found himself up against another car in a hold he knew from experience he could break if he broke his own arm, but it would take weeks and not hours to heal if he did so.

He was panting, true, completely winded, heart pounding hard against his ribcage, but he had just held his own against the Black Widow for a whole six minutes. And she was the one who’d taught him all the tricks he even knew.

“Here’s the thing,” she said in his ear, voice clipped with her own rapid breathing, and without meaning to Steve found he was imagining he could feel her heartbeat against his back, imagining her face flushed and her breath quick for entirely different reasons than a sparring match in an underground car park beneath a laser tag facility. He bit his lip. “Here’s the thing. With the serum, you mighta lasted, what, another minute? Two?” Amused but not mocking: warm, fond. “I can never work you out, you know.” He snorted in disbelief. “It’s true. You tell people you’re showing them everything, and they believe you, because you’re showing them everything. It’s a neat trick. But anyway. I’m not sure, but I suspect very strongly that there’s a part of you right now that is more than a little convinced you’re a whole other person to the six-foot-something version.”

Steve shifted in her grip, but didn’t say anything. He could just about see the reflection of her face against the car if he looked down slightly, but he didn’t want to, so he stared ahead instead.

Natasha let him shift but didn’t let him up. “Probably not helped by – and this much I’m pretty sure of – your Captain America split personality act. And you know, maybe where he’s concerned you’d have a point.” She rested her pointy chin on his shoulder. “But you make him, Steve. He doesn’t make you.”

Finally Steve sighed. “I know,” he said. His voice was pretty hoarse. “I do know.”

“Yeah?” She sounded doubtful.

“Yeah.”

She turned her head and kissed his neck above the line of his collar. “OK.” Her grip hadn’t been overly tight, but Steve remembered how quickly he used to bruise. He would be carrying her fingerprints on his arms for days. The thought got him a little hot under the collar. When she stepped back he turned around quickly and tugged her into an embrace they didn’t break till Bucky and Sam came to find them.

+++

“Skill,” Natasha said in the cab home. “Skill and smarts. Neither of which either of you two schmucks have ever been blessed with.” She drummed her fingers on the windowsill and assumed an angelic smile.

“Harsh,” said Sam.

“Probably true, dude,” said the cabbie solemnly. “It ain’t a good idea to cross a lady, no sirree, specially not a redhead.”

“She’s a Russian spy,” Bucky said helpfully.

“That a fact,” said the cabbie.

“He’s a national icon,” Natasha said.

“Yeah, what, like the Washington monument?”

“More like Jersey,” said Steve, “you know – a disaster area.”

“Hey, man, I was born in Asbury Park,” said the cabbie, sounding hurt.

“I thought that only existed in a Springsteen song,” Natasha said interestedly.

“How in God’s name have you three lived this long,” said Sam. “ _Stop talking_.”

+++

Sam stayed to dinner, which was great, because it was Sam and Steve always liked to hang out with him, but –

But. Bucky kept looking at him, half-lidded eyes sweeping over Steve from head to toes, and Natasha kept touching him, an absent-minded brush of her fingers over his shoulder or back when she passed him, the line of her thigh against his on the couch, and Steve didn’t know how long he could deal with this (how long he got to have this) and it was killing him, this – this possibility. This promise. He had given himself a day’s grace, and the day wasn’t over yet. Only this morning Natasha and Bucky had promised him later, and it _was_ later.

Sam left. Steve saw him out. When he came back into the living room his throat was tight. Natasha was in another room. Bucky was stacking the glasses they had been drinking out of, and Steve took them out of his hands and put them back on the coffee table.

“Hey,” Bucky said, voice gone oddly gentle.

“Don’t –” Steve said. “Don’t be sensible at me now. Not unless –” _you don’t want it_.

“It’s not a fight,” Bucky said.

Steve laughed. “It’d be easier if it was.”

And Bucky reached for him again, hand on his shoulder, thumb pressing hard against his clavicle; then the familiar gesture changed, gentled, became a caress against Steve’s neck, cupping the back of his head, thumb rubbing against his ear. Steve went hot all over. Desperate impatience was dissolving into anticipation, considerably more pleasurable.

“It’s the easiest thing in the world,” Bucky said softly.

“For you,” said Steve, smiling. “Hey, it’s all right. I sort of regret not having abs” – Bucky snorted – “but I would really, really like for you to fuck me sometime soon. Very soon.”

Bucky sighed. He was smiling, lopsided, besotted. “Yeah.”

One of the things Steve found really noticeable about modern cinema was that it had done away with the convention of having the leading man kiss the girl by wrapping his arm around her shoulders and making her bend her head back for it at an angle that looked both painful and submissive.

Bucky had been in cryostasis when they sent that memo round.

The angle was definitely sort of awkward, but this was more than made up for by the way Steve stopped having to do any work to stay on his feet, because Bucky was holding him up, and by the – the overpowering-ness of it, the way Buck made it so easy to give himself up to it and just – just – he could vanish into this kiss, melt and be gone –

Steve got the scrambled tatters of his mind back together and tripped them both onto the couch by the simple expedient of kicking Bucky’s right ankle to the side and then pushing him down. From somewhere else in the room Natasha started laughing.

So did Bucky, whooping. “Your _face_ , oh my god.”

“You’re an ass,” Steve said, settling over his lap, bony knees to either side of Bucky’s hips. “Does he do that to you?” he asked Nat curiously.

She grinned. “Only when he’s told to.” She was barefoot now, the sweater she’d been wearing gone, leaving her in jeans and top, and Steve – embarrassingly – couldn’t quite take his eyes off her cleavage when she sank onto the couch next to Bucky. Then the two of them were kissing, and Steve bit his lower lip hard. It only got worse when Natasha tilted her head back and Bucky got to work on her throat, the soft skin under her chin and jaw, smile stretching his reddened mouth wide. She looked over at Steve, smiling. He reached out and tangled his hand in her hair again.

“What do you want? I mean in specific?”

If Steve’s lower lip started bleeding in another minute he would not be in the least surprised. “I…” What _did_ he want? The possibilities were endless. For Bucky to fuck him was pretty straightforward; getting fucked had been a perennial fantasy of his ever since he had worked out he was attracted to men as well as women. He wanted to make Natasha come, wanted to touch her all over, wanted – actually, wanted her to ride him, wanted to _see_ while they –

“Still working on that,” Steve said at last. “The list of things.” Bucky’s right hand was firm and warm on Steve’s thigh, but his left was pulling Natasha’s top down inexorably, finger hooked in the hem between her breasts, his slight tan and beard-shadow dark against her paler skin, her white bra. She slid her hand into Bucky’s hair, fingers tented, rubbing lightly at his scalp, and Steve watched the flush gather in her cheeks, mesmerised. He leaned close; they kissed over the top of Bucky’s head, quick and then deeper. She had hooked one leg over Bucky’s knee; he could feel her thigh pressed against his ass.

“No shabby tigers, anyway,” she said when they drew back, and when Bucky laughed Steve felt the tremble of his body to his very bones.

He laughed, too. “Little daunted,” he admitted, picking up the quote, “but not shabby, no.”

“You daunted me,” Bucky said.

“The hell I did,” Natasha said, sounding affronted.

“Sure. First time in seventy years, and it wasn’t with just _anyone_.”

That made her smile. Steve kissed the corner of it, left hand tight around Bucky’s bicep. God almighty. No raspberries, but the food they had eaten and the wine they had drunk, and – he thought it was her deodorant. She took hold of his wrist, pulling his hand off Bucky’s arm and across and – the bra was awkward, but her breast was warm and heavy in his hand and he rubbed his palm across her nipple, mesmerised again by her smile, by Bucky’s hot eyes on his fingers, Natasha’s bared skin. Steve had always had fairly big hands, but he knew they were reasonably deft, and uncalloused (none of his old scars had come back), and warm. The way her back arched, leaning into his touch, was poetry.

“Bed,” Bucky said quietly. “Yeah?”

“Yes,” Natasha said, low and pleased. “Oh yes.”

They both looked at Steve. He shook his head, smiling, leaned in and took another kiss from Bucky, warm this time and slow and deep, like this morning’s kisses in the bed they were about to go back to.

“I love you,” he said, feeling Bucky’s lips skate across his cheek when he turned to Natasha. “I really do.” They were silent; Natasha’s eyes shining, Bucky’s half-closed. “I’m gonna screw this up, at some point. You know me. I’m not – but you know me. I love you.”

He didn’t know what he was trying to say: an apology in advance for a fault not yet committed, or an apology for having been such a mess for so long, or a thank you that they were managing to love him in spite of – of everything.

“Nobody’s gonna screw this up,” Natasha said. “I couldn’t bear it.”

“ _Bed_ ,” Bucky said again, insistent. “How are you both so competent and yet so totally hopeless?” He kissed Natasha, short and fierce, and started to stand up so Steve slid off his lap – and found his legs were unsteady, great, just great – “Cannot fucking listen to you tying yourselves into knots over nothing.” He had a fistful of Steve’s shirt and the look in his eyes had gone sharp and… and sort of predatory. Pulled Natasha up with his other hand: “Gonna make you both forget your own damn names I swear.”

The look on Natasha’s face – half amused, half turned on beyond all remnants of rationality – had Steve believing him implicitly. Bucky dipped his head to kiss Steve again, both of them staggering when Natasha started pushing at them, herding them towards the bedrooms; they made it, somehow, without falling over, and Bucky said, “Supplies,” as Steve toppled him onto the bed and climbed on, concentrating very hard on the buttons of Bucky’s shirt.

“What makes you think I don’t have lube,” he said, and Natasha slid her hands over his shoulders and kissed his neck and said, “Do you, though?” Wow, her nose tracing the top of his ear was – and the way she kissed the hinge of his jaw –

“I’m ninety-eight, not dead,” Steve said shakily.

“Guess we’re about to see that for sure,” Bucky said, grinning. Just for that Steve pushed him onto the mattress and twisted round to kiss Natasha till they were both breathless and Bucky was swearing quietly, his hands busy at the waistband of Steve’s trousers. Oh god, there – there. Even through his briefs – he shuddered, closed his eyes, arched into it, was this, or a less intense version of this, what Natasha felt when he caressed her breast? She was pushing his trousers down, he could feel her smiling where she was kissing his neck, the fabric felt – he didn’t usually notice how his trousers felt against his skin, coming off or going on. They were jeans, or khakis – they were comfortable and fairly durable and god almighty he needed them gone, and the briefs as well. Bucky’s palm was rubbing slowly across his cock, firm yet not enough. Steve forced his eyes open again.

Shirt open to his waist, hanging down at either side of his chest, grin like he was about to ride the Cyclone, or jump out of a plane, eyes wide, pupils a little blown, mouth red and wet already, chewing on his bottom lip like – like Steve didn’t know what.

And then Natasha bit his earlobe gently and started to talk, damn her. “Isn’t he gorgeous? All spread out for you. And me.” Bucky’s smile grew sharp, thighs spreading, obscene roll of his hips, and Steve was still moving his own hips in broken little circles, trying to get more friction, mindless. “But you’re both beautiful. Look at you.”

“Look at you,” said Steve at last, and tearing his eyes off Bucky’s face managed, with her help, to get both his own shirt and her top off. Bucky’s hand on his cock was a gentle touch, bringing him down again, which was only to the good because bras, seriously, how did they work. Wait. He had it. It unsnapped, and the cups jumped forwards, sliding up: Natasha pushed the straps off her shoulders and gone. This time Steve got both hands on her breasts, and oh she liked it, head falling back, that perfect arch of her spine again.

“Play with her nipples,” Bucky said, “she likes that,” and Steve, blessing the internet devoutly but silently, slid his arms around her waist and bent his head to kiss and lick them. It was – different. Natasha’s hands slid into his hair, holding him in place, guiding him to the other breast from time to time, and Steve lost himself in it a little, the noises she made, the way she sighed and moved, her fingers tight against his scalp or stroking, looser. With the fraction of his brain that was not caught up in teasing her breasts Steve got his hands to move, stroked her back stutteringly, from shoulders to hips and back, then round her waist; she laughed, squirmed – “Firmer, that tickles,” – then sighed when he put more pressure into the touch, tracing the same path over and over. He kissed her breastbone at last, laid a trail of kisses up her flushed chest to her throat, left a hickey there gently while his hands tugged at the fastenings of her pants.

“Up,” she said, “up,” slipping away from him, sliding off the bed; Steve felt the loss of her at once, fought to keep a moan in, cold as if the room was suddenly empty, though he’d been balanced on Bucky’s thighs the whole time. Natasha hooked her fingers into waistband of her jeans and pushed trousers and panties down together. Then she dragged Steve off Bucky and got him naked, cool hands on his flanks, his thighs, his hips again. She stroked his cock a few times, her hands chasing each other, and he wanted to finger her – get her to come – but his hands were clumsy and big and out of his control, so he gripped her hips and sighed and shivered. Her breath was warm against his shoulder, her smile hidden by her bent head, the fall of her hair.

Then – perhaps he shifted, and they both noticed at the same time – simultaneously, they both looked at Bucky. Legs obscenely spread, outline of his cock against his pants very obvious, shirt still hanging off his shoulders… he smiled at them, and licked his lips.

Steve’s whole body shuddered.

“You comin’ back over here?” Bucky said, grinning. “Or do I get a show?”

“Some other time,” said Steve. “Jesus, you’re overdressed for this party.” Three pairs of hands working those jeans off; it didn’t take long. Boxer-briefs, like oversized girl’s panties. Steve very strongly suspected Natasha of buying them. Then again, Bucky could be vain when it suited him. He wrestled those off too. “You look like a porn star in nothing but that shirt.”

“It’s a great shirt,” said Bucky lowly. Steve wrapped his hand slowly around Bucky’s cock, began to stroke him interestedly: Bucky liked it quicker than Steve himself did, but not as rough. The angle of it was really weird until Steve got used to it, and then it was the greatest thing in the world: the way Bucky’s head fell back, the way he let his hips roll up into it, the way his face flushed and his breath came short. Steve was seized with an urge to try sucking him off, but, well, one thing at a time, or he’d make a mess of it. Natasha’s hands were ghosting over his back, barely-there caresses stroking his spine, his shoulder-blades. Steve blinked hard and shivered more and bit at his lips again to keep his concentration. His hands were damp with Bucky’s pre-come.

Then Bucky said, “Quit it if you still wanna get fucked.”

Holy Mary mother of god. Steve quit it, feeling as if it was a heroic effort to take his hands off Bucky’s cock. Natasha she crawled onto the bed beside Bucky, kissed him deep and filthy, and Steve’s breath hitched for the thousandth time that night already. They were gorgeous – gorgeous, and his. She slid her leg over Bucky’s left one, her thigh pressed against his groin, curve of her breast paler than Bucky’s chest with its uneven smattering of dark hair, and god the way the prosthetic looked wrapped around her waist, resting on her hip – Steve was composing the picture already, memorising shadows, fall of hair, plates and angles of the arm, mentally editing out the black shirtsleeve...

“He’s drawing us in his head,” Bucky muttered, breathless but fond.

“That could go both ways,” Natasha said. “As a compliment. Given the situation.” She was smiling, Steve could hear it in her voice, though she was busy laving kisses on Bucky’s throat and clavicle – did she have a thing about throats and clavicles? She was welcome to abuse his any time she liked – and he put his knee on the bed and said thoughtfully, “If I _did_ get my sketchbook…”

“Another time,” Natasha said. Bucky’s right hand was on her thigh, the one lying against his groin, tugging it in and up, angling – oh. Oh, she was rolling her hips against him, _rubbing_ against him, and he bit at her jaw gently, slow and easy, big hands splayed over her hip and thigh.

“Yeah,” he said, voice that sent shivers through Steve though he wasn’t even being addressed, “yes, love, there, think this is enough? Want Steve to see you come. You’re nearly there, aren’t you, what do you need, my fingers?”

Steve was not ashamed of the thing he had for Natasha’s mouth, but the way it looked now, open for a moment, then pressed closed, then her teeth white against her cherry-red lips, bitten full and kissable, was something _else_. From his vantage point at the foot of the bed he had his first undistracted view of her naked, and it was glorious. She’d done something to her hair weeks ago that turned it a red deeper and richer than the bright, burnished colours she usually sported; it lay in curling tangles around her head and shoulders, dark against the cream-coloured sheet; her limbs were long and muscled, the curve of her waist and breasts suggesting that, off her training regime and with a more relaxed diet than she usually had when she was working, her figure would be fuller. And there was the Odessa scar, like a brand on her stomach and back; Bucky’s metal fingers brushed it. The noises she was making were intoxicating. _Not long_ , Steve thought, _she’s close_ , and then he leaned forwards suddenly and kissed her hip, feeling his forehead brushing Bucky’s fingers.

“May I?”

She laughed, breathless and happy. “Sure. Give me your hand,” but Steve was already moving her, pushing her away from Bucky gently and rolling her onto her back.

Bucky said, “Quick study,” husky in Natasha’s ear, following her over, his leg trapping one of hers, his arm under her shoulders. Natasha said, “Oh, Christ, yes,” and then laughed when Steve kissed her knee, her inner thigh, her stomach where the line of red curls ended. Oh – they were the same dark, rich red as the hair on her head. He guessed he’d finally worked out which shade was her natural one… he combed his fingers through those thick curls, studied her cunt for a moment, licked her wetness off his fingertips curiously, then said, “Any tips?” grinning.

“Your tongue,” she said, “quick and – right here. And right now.”

It was odd – warm and slick of course, and it tasted like nothing particularly, in spite of all the flowery descriptions Steve had ever read; bitter, a little musky. Her labia were thick, folded, the surface uneven, and her clit was a hard nub under his tongue, that at least was more or less exact, he licked at her, felt her hands on his head, heard her begin to cry out, felt her thighs tense and tremble; he brought his hand in and pressed the backs of his fingers against her cunt underneath his chin, pressed a finger inside her, not that it was hard, she was so wet and open, he moved his hand carefully, exploring as he licked her, quick and firm as he could manage, and everything went tense, her hips jerking spasmodically, her body fluttering tightly around his finger – she was completely silent in the moment of it, unless Bucky was kissing her, Steve didn’t know. He kept licking her, feeling her legs shake with aftershocks, until her hand in his hair dragged him away and up her body.

“OK?”

“Don’t fish for compliments,” she said, grinning, the flush in her cheeks dying down and her eyes shining.

“Wouldn’t dare.” His mouth and fingers were wet with her; after a second he reached up to rub it away, but Bucky caught his hand and kissed him instead, licking Nat’s taste out of Steve’s mouth. Oh hell, that was – a thought that bore further examination. At a later date.

“Thought you boys had plans,” Natasha said, a bubble of laughter in her voice. There was – was there, in her voice, the faintest trace of an accent?

“Yeah?” said Bucky, smiling. “Probably take forever to open you up.”

Steve had to close his eyes. “Forever – forever sounds fine,” he rasped. God, did it ever. Sprawl out across the sheets – Natasha would hold him – spread his legs and lie here and be touched, all over, inside and out, opened up, taken, claimed, fucked, whatever word you wanted to use for it, with Natasha curled around him and against him, surrounding him. And Bucky still had that shirt hanging off his shoulders. Steve was – was so completely happy he was frightening himself, or he would be frightening himself if Natasha and Bucky weren’t here; their touch kept him grounded, kept him safe. Of course, if they weren’t here, he wouldn’t be this happy… how to function in the ordinary world when there was _this_ in it as well, this much love in a single touch, a kiss, a whisper? He would lose his mind over it, he was sure. He was acutely and precisely aware of every nerve ending in his body, every inch of his own skin. It was glorious.

He had, somehow, ended up in the middle, Natasha kneeling up to wrench the shirt off Bucky’s shoulders, Bucky laughing and pulling away – oh, the nightstand, lube, of course. Steve – in the fascination of eating Natasha out he had almost forgotten his own desire; now he wrapped a hand loosely around his cock and pulled a few times, shivered with it.

“Lovely,” Natasha murmured. “Next time we’ll get you properly in the middle, want you in me while he fucks you,” and Steve groaned. “Or the other way around.”

“Honestly?” said Steve.

“Hmm?” She was drawing figure-eights around his bellybutton with her fingers, smiling.

“Not given a single thought to topping.”

“Not ever?” Bucky said, fascinated.

“Well not in the hypothetical sex fantasy sense, no.”

Bucky tossed the lube bottle from hand to hand, laughing. “And in the not-hypothetical sense?”

“One thing at a time,” said Steve. “Get down here.”

Bucky dropped the lube onto the mattress and crawled over him. The kiss was long and deep and dirty, and Steve gasped into it, catching hold of Bucky’s head and going to town. It was perfect. When Bucky drew back and knelt up again Steve caught hold of his right wrist suddenly.

“Hey. Didn’t you say they were sensitive?”

“Jesus fuck,” said Bucky helplessly, watching Steve kiss his fingertips and shaking a little. “Oh, hell, Steve.”

“Quit making trouble,” Natasha said, caught Steve’s hands in her own, laced their fingers together, pushed him back onto the mattress and bent over him, wow it was odd to have her breasts against his chest – lovely – but odd. Everything was odd to him, new, totally outside of his knowledge. Steve let her draw his hands above his head, left them there when she stroked her fingers down his arms again to his shoulders and chest, and he remembered in a flash that she’d loved him sucking on her tongue this morning, so he tried it again, and yeah.

He was so busy kissing Natasha – perhaps this had been the plan – that he didn’t notice what Bucky was up to until a slick finger rubbed against his anus, pushed inside a little, drew out and tried again – Steve gasped into Natasha’s mouth, pulling back reflexively, but it was all right – it didn’t hurt – it was Bucky, just Bucky, just what he’d asked for –

“There, sweetheart, relax,” said Bucky. If Steve had been more with it he would have had words to say about that nickname. Right now it was the only appellation he would ever need again in his life. He was hot all over again, his cheeks burning, tension and – no one was even touching his cock but he was going to come in another minute, he was sure. Could he get it up a second time tonight if he did? In his serum-body, no kind of a problem; but this wasn’t his serum-body, and he wasn’t seventeen anymore no matter how he counted his age. His hands on Natasha’s waist were bruising-tight, his hips pushing up into Bucky’s touch, her weight against him, Steve all warm along the side she was lying against, his other flank feeling weirdly neglected, he tried to focus on that, tried to pull himself down, but Bucky’s goddamned _fingers_ , Jesus Mary and Joseph. They pushed in, gentle, and dragged out, slow, and twisted, stroking, over and over and steady and relentless opening him up and lighting him up and everywhere that oh fuck fuck fuck so that was what his prostate did. Steve _sobbed_.

“Steve,” Bucky said. “Love, love, it’s not a race, not a competition, it’s all right. You’re so beautiful like this, let go if you need it, come on. Not gonna stop till you tell me to, I swear, I swear. Want to watch you, sweetheart, come on.”

And Natasha, lips against his ear, her thumbs rubbing over his nipples, more sensitive than Steve would ever have guessed: “Feels so good, I know, I know, better than you could’ve imagined, too much to handle, but it’s not and you can, you can, love,” and she wrapped her hand around his cock and – Bucky’s fingers were –

– oh –

Steve had never seen stars masturbating and now was no different, but his whole body seemed to seize up and everything – he closed his eyes – he wasn’t quite crying, but – gasping, he brushed his hands over his face, opened his eyes again, trembling with aftershocks. Natasha kissed him. Bucky’s left hand was cool and heavy on his thigh.

“You OK?” Nat murmured after a while.

“No I’m dying, what kind of a question is that.”

She laughed at him. Bucky – oh god, Bucky’s fingers were – yeah, that wasn’t unpleasant, but five minutes ago it had been actively hot. There was an awful sort of squelch when Bucky slid them free and leaned up to kiss Steve himself. Slowly, slowly, his heartbeat settled, his breathing evened out again.

“Still want -?”

“Give us a minute,” Steve said, eyes falling shut in spite of himself.

Bucky laughed. “Yeah.”

“Been kind of a long –” month, really.

“Not a race, love.”

No, no it wasn’t. “But,” said Steve suddenly. “What about you?”

“Fine,” Bucky said, the stupid – kneeling there with an unflagging erection and biting his lips with want. Steve fought not to dissolve completely into the mattress, wanted to sit up and – well, maybe now he could suck him off – but truth to tell his legs were jelly, and so was most of the rest of him.

He opened his mouth to say something (probably something stupid), but Natasha said, “You gonna stay awake for this?” and sat up.

Steve’s mouth was dry. There was no way – but if anything could do it, it would be watching them together. Bucky looked at her, and his eyes went dark and shuttered.

“Up to something,” he said, beginning to smile.

“Having just watched our very hot boyfriend come all over himself with your fingers in him and mine on his cock,” Natasha said, biting her lips again to keep her grin back, “the only thing I’m after is another orgasm.”

Very hot. Delusional. Steve forced himself up, propped on his right arm, and put his left around her, spread his hand against her side and kissed her upper arm, the sweat-damp inside of her elbow, the side of her breast. Bucky said, “Dammit,” and Natasha said, “Yeah.” Her knees were wide apart on the mattress, her hands between her own legs, stroking herself in a quick tight rhythm. Steve wriggled till he was sitting up properly and brushed his right hand down her belly to touch her, their fingers sliding together, interlocking and moving apart.

Bucky said, “C’mere.” Natasha between them – then stretched out across the sheets the way Steve had been just a few minutes ago. She put her hands above her head to grip the headboard, aha, the long stretch of her body pulling her breasts tight against her ribcage, her legs splayed shamelessly around Bucky’s hips. His right hand was wet with lube; it left a glistening trail on her thigh when he caught hold of her and settled her knee against his elbow, left hand gripping her hip, raised off the mattress, and then – the noise she made was choked off, desperately controlled and quiet; for the first time Steve suspected Natasha had a few hang-ups of her own about sex. Bucky said, “Tasha,” harshly, and when she laughed – still quiet – he started to move.

It was almost too much to watch. They were looking at each other, eyes on one another’s faces, lit up with a fierce and knowing joy, and for a moment Steve was the third wheel; the intruder. It was beautiful; he loved it; but it wasn’t his to see. Natasha wouldn’t – or couldn’t? – cry out, but every time Bucky thrust she gasped, mouth falling open. The bed was moving with the force of it. Bucky looked rapt, lost, overcome. Steve wanted to make him look like that; wanted to be the one who drew those gasps out of Natasha. And he envied them their grace and confidence, too, the ease with which they gave each other pleasure, as if this was what their bodies had been made for. Nothing simpler.

But, he thought, they moved like that in a fight, too. And after all Natasha had been right: practice. He bit back a grin of his own. Then he moved in, kissed Natasha deeply, sucked her tongue again a little – that got him a moan, louder than the others. Hah.

“Turn around,” Bucky said, voice still harsh; Steve looked up, surprised, twisted, and was thoroughly kissed for his trouble. When Steve moved back Bucky shifted his stance, dropping forwards over Natasha’s body, left hand clenched in the sheet by her shoulder, she rasped, “Yes, yes,” and unclenched her hands from the headboard, dragging red scratches down Bucky’s back, holding his head still to kiss him over and over. And there, again, she went tense all over and shook, hips twisting up again and again, and Bucky said, “Fuck – yes,” and followed her over, doing a keep-quiet trick of his own.

Steve couldn’t keep back a gasp at the sight. The mind, he thought dryly, was more than willing, but the flesh absolutely was not. Steve’s own come was drying on his stomach (that was always pretty disgusting) and he had no idea where the duvet or the blankets had gone; in a minute he would get up, find a washcloth, find the blankets; they could sleep. One of Natasha’s hands was in his hair, his forehead pressed against her shoulder. Bucky’s uneven breathing echoed loudly in the quiet bedroom, but hers was soft and hitching, suppressed. Then she said something – a mutter, Russian. Steve’s Russian barely deserved to be called rudimentary, but he thought she had said _mine_ , and also _love you_.

Yeah.

+++

They didn’t sleep for very long, because Steve had an asthma attack. Luckily he wasn’t in the middle this time – he scrambled out of bed, wheezing, searching for the inhaler he’d left on the nightstand, but he couldn’t find the bloody nightstand and he didn’t want to have to stagger to the light switch –

“Here.” Natasha, kneeling in front of him with the inhaler in her hand; then Bucky’s hands on his back and chest, steadying him as he used it. Wow, this was – this was weird to say the least. It helped; Steve was dizzy with surprise, which was stupid, because the asthma treatments had worked just fine when he was a cat. There was no reason they wouldn’t work on his real body.

And it was over, slowly. He’d been looking for the nightstand on the wrong side of the bed. Idiot. Natasha’s hands were on his thighs, Bucky’s warmth at his back. Steve dropped the inhaler and sighed bitterly.

“Yeah, so.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “Sorry I woke you up.”

Natasha looked past him at Bucky. “Has he always done this?”

“Always,” Bucky said. “He doesn’t mind askin’ for help when he’s Cap because _Captain America’s_ a national icon who’s doin’ your dumb ass a favour by it.” Voice thick with sleep and an old, old frustration, his accent slurred and thickened in a way their mothers would have rapped his knuckles to hear.

Steve flinched. Then, very deliberately, he made himself relax, forced the tension out of his shoulders, the urge to huddle in on himself and look away from them. He leaned back into Bucky’s hands, let him take his weight. _The thing is, you don’t have to. The thing is, you got nothing to prove._ And Natasha’s face when he had scratched her hands.

“Sorry,” he said, voice still hoarse. “Told you I’m a mess.”

Bucky pulled him back onto the bed gently, piled the pillows and lay back against them. Steve crawled into the v of his legs, let Bucky hold him up. Natasha followed them; he drew her close, tangled his fingers in her hair again, kissed her sleep-warm face. She pulled away to drag the duvet up over them and then sank into the curve of Bucky’s arm, her legs tangling with Steve’s. One of them had cleaned him up after – earlier; Steve had slept right through it. He was tired again now, but he didn’t want to sleep. Not yet. This felt too good to sleep through: Bucky’s chest moving as he breathed, the curve of Natasha’s eyelashes up close, the lingering smell of sex and the warmth of their bodies.

Natasha seemed to think so too, because suddenly she grinned.

“When did you work out you liked guys, anyway?”

“Me?” said Steve. “Errrrrrrrrrrrm. I don’t know. Sometime after Loki came by.”

“Sometime after –“ Bucky said. “Really?”

“Well I wasn’t really paying attention while it was still illegal,” Steve admitted. “Or I was trying not to pay attention. I don’t think it ever really came up, for me.” He had an idea that this was Bucky’s fault. He tended towards dark-haired guys with pale eyes, and even before DC if he fantasised about a guy that man would have several traits in common with Bucky. Partly this was probably just because Bucky was the guy he knew best and trusted most, but partly… yeah.

Buck didn’t need to hear that. His ego was fine the way it was.

“What about you, anyway?”

Bucky hummed. “Summer of ’32.”

For a long moment Steve was silent. Then he said, “Jesus Christ on a cracker, not Toby Willis. Please, please, please, anyone but Toby Willis,” but Bucky was laughing his ass off.

“Didn’t you ever wonder why he didn’t like you?”

“Because he was a dick!” said Steve.

“Anyway I dumped him sharpish once I worked it out. I mean that he was a dick about you.”

“I have this mental image of a couple of skinny teenagers running around Brooklyn both trying to work out why they’re so jealous of everybody who comes near their best friend,” Natasha said fondly.

Bucky was silent. “I don’t think that boy was in love with Steve.”

“I wasn’t in love with you,” Steve admitted. “I think I hated myself too much for that.”

“What about Peggy?” Natasha was solemn.

After a minute, Steve said slowly, “Peggy understood me. Which _he_ never had. I mean, in that way that – yes, that’s happened to me, and it’s because of something I can’t change about myself… yeah.”

“Well I’ve got a metal arm now, so I figure we’re even.” Then Bucky laughed at himself, wry and infectious.

“Anyway,” Steve said. “What about you?”

Natasha _giggled_. It was breathtaking. “We were ridiculous.”

“Spill,” Steve ordered.

“Well,” said Bucky. “You know that party Stark threw when Thor came to town…”

“Oh, the one where you both vanished three hours in and I couldn’t find you again all night?”

“Oh you noticed,” Natasha said snippily. “Only you were flirting with Thor all night.”

“Was not!”

“Were too.”

“Was not! We were having this very serious – we were talking about the Cold War, if you _must_ know, and –“ He broke off when they both started laughing at him. “Yeah, all right. We weren’t talking about me.”

“We had this giant fight, actually,” said Natasha. “We left to go have it someplace where JARVIS wasn’t recording it.”

“Giant fight?” Steve repeated, tickled pink. He had never known them to fight since Bucky had come home. From day one they had always seemed to understand each other via some strange telepathy neither he nor Sam nor even Clint, who knew Nat best, had any access to.

Bucky said, “Huge. The cabbie was really interested.”

“Had a lot of good advice, too.” Natasha was grinning.

“Apparently his niece has been in a relationship with her girlfriend and boyfriend forever and the girlfriend has another girlfriend? Was that how it worked?”

“I don’t know, but they’ve got this adorable kid and they’re apparently very happy.”

Steve was laughing so much he thought he might have another asthma attack.

“I told you,” Natasha said. “Ridiculous.”

“But what, oh my god, hang on.” He wiped his face with both hands. “OK. What was the fight about?”

“Lot of things. Odessa. St Petersburg. Whether or not I should’ve killed Leo Novokov while she was bleeding out all over my lap in a burning building.”

“Newsflash: you should’ve,” Natasha interjected.

“Wait, wait, what,” Steve said.

“Mostly we fought about you.”

“Me?”

Natasha laughed. “We were both kind of under the impression that, you know, the other one was… in love with you. Which, I mean. But anyway. It took a lot of yelling to work it out.”

“Aw,” said Steve. St Petersburg? Leo Novokov? “And also the cabbie’s advice.”

“We should send him flowers,” said Bucky, laughing again.

“And we kept trying to sit you down and talk to you about it but you were always off on a date with Thor,” said Natasha.

“ _Friend_ -date,” Steve said firmly. Then he added, “God, I was so jealous.”

“Really?” They said it both at once, and they both sounded pleased.

“Completely. It never occurred to me…” He gestured. Then he yawned.

“Because you’re an idiot,” Natasha said. She touched his face curiously, stroked the bump in his nose with her fingertips, the line of his mouth. Steve shivered, but he was exhausted.

“I am.” He kissed her fingertips, remembering the way Bucky had looked when he had done the same to him earlier.

“He’s admitted it,” said Bucky. “Finally! Can I get it in writing?”

“What happened in St Petersburg?” Steve asked, bleary with impending sleep. He thought they were looking at each other, but his eyes were falling shut and this was – too good to be true, still. He snuggled, shameless, into Bucky’s chest, put one hand on Natasha’s waist to keep her close.

“We’ll tell you sometime,” Natasha said.

“Not tryin’ t’pry,” Steve said. “Not’f it ain’t my business.”

Bucky sighed suddenly, long and deep. “Another time, yeah?”

_Sure_. Steve wasn’t convinced he’d said it out loud, though.

+++

In the morning Steve was the first one to wake. They had squirmed around in the night; Natasha was in the middle; it was beginning to dawn on Steve that Bucky was an octopus-esque sleep-cuddler. He grinned. That was cute. They had shared beds and bunks and sleeping rolls in the war, but that had been more of a huddle than an embrace.

Yet – this felt like a selfish complaint, but it was the one he had – Steve had still not been fucked by either of them. Although, given the givens, perhaps it was best left for a time he might actually be able to get it up more than once. Or at least last a little longer than he had last night.

Last night. He shifted to the side so he could stretch without waking them. Last _night_. The asthma attack had been… unnecessary. But everything else, oh god. He grinned up at the ceiling like an idiot. Then he looked at them. Natasha was stirring awake. Bucky’s face was tucked into her shoulder. Grace and strength and beauty; compassion, loyalty, love; trust, and the warm intimacy of knowing them – of being known – inside and out. _I get to keep this_ , he thought suddenly. _This is mine, unless I screw it up_.

Steve was going to do his damnedest, every day, not to screw it up.

Natasha’s eyes blinked open. “Heyyyy.” She yawned hugely, hiding it against the side of Bucky’s head.

“Hey,” Steve murmured. He kissed her gently, once, twice. Morning breath was still pretty awful. “Gonna make coffee.”

“OK.” She smiled, all lazy and sweet, totally unguarded. It was enthralling. He didn’t have a choice except to kiss her again.

“Hey,” she said again. Their noses bumped. Steve was so in love it hurt.

“Mmmmm?” That was Bucky. Steve swallowed a laugh.

“Coffee. And I love you.”

“Good to know.” Then, as far as Steve could tell, he went back to sleep. Never mind. Smell of coffee never failed to wake him up.

+++

Everything was fine as long as they were in the apartment. Breakfast, showering, dressing, leaving, fine, just fine. They kept bumping into each other in totally unnecessary ways just to touch, just to kiss, and Steve could, he got to, it was allowed, it was wanted. Yesterday hadn’t been like this. Had it? He’d been so keyed up.

But then they got on the subway and Steve couldn’t stop looking at them, and it wasn’t private now it was sort of embarrassing. Aargh. Everyone in New York must know what he was feeling just by looking at his face.

He wasn’t ashamed. He just wished they were alone at home and not in public. It was excruciating.

With Peggy it had been a little like this. After the war, they had said, and stuck to it, even when opportunities turned up that others would’ve taken; maybe that had made it easier. Right now Steve couldn’t look at Bucky’s face and not see him kneeling on the bed fingering him open, and when he caught sight of Nat’s crossed legs in the seat beside him he thought about having them wrapped over his shoulders. It was awful.

“You OK?” Bucky said when they changed trains. “You’re miles away.”

“You know exactly where I am,” Steve said gloomily.

Natasha sniggered. “Read your book and think about Nick naked.”

“Jesus wept, Nat.”

“That was just unnecessary.”

JARVIS sped them straight up to the penthouse, where Sam was already having second breakfast with Thor and Stark. It was a big table, and there was more than enough food, so they joined in, and for the first half an hour or more the conversation circled around the invention of subways, of all things, and an extended comparison between the New York system and the London one.

Stark, of course, having never set foot on either, was convinced he was an expert on both. Steve was beginning to find the man’s attitude more entertaining than irritating, but it was a fine line.

Finally, when the plates were clear and everyone was finishing their drinks, Stark said, “So what’s the plan?”

Steve put his glass down. Still half-full of orange juice, he chose to stare at it for a few minutes before he looked at Stark.

“I don’t know. Can you get me the serum back?”

Stark snapped his fingers, sarcastic. “I’m a mechanic,” he said. “I don’t do biology. Too much trouble. Nothing stays still, everything’s squishy.” Then he sighed. “But I can try. And there’s Bruce, too. We’re not fresh out, Cap, but it won’t be easy.”

“I understand that,” said Steve. He glanced at Thor. “Unless there’s a way to bring it back with magic?”

“I don’t know,” Thor said quietly. “My mother might have. If the serum itself was in some way magical –”

At that point Sam leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms over his chest and said, “Do you want it back?”

Thor and Stark looked at each other, very obviously holding a silent debate as to whether or not they really needed to be here. Natasha – next to Steve with her legs crossed and her hands folded in her lap – looked up sharply. Bucky didn’t stir.

Steve said, “Don’t come the understanding counsellor with me. I’m your friend, not your patient.”

Sam laughed out loud. Steve wondered if he would’ve said anything so blunt in his serum-body, but he suspected the answer was yes.

“Dude,” said Sam, “it’s a relevant question either way. You could get out now and go –“

“Raise chickens on a farm someplace in Iowa?” Steve was more amused than confrontational. Of course it was a relevant question, and of course he’d been thinking about it. Kind of. Sort of. When he wasn’t busy thinking about sex with Natasha and Bucky. Time-consuming subject, that.

But he had thought about it, and he was sure of his answer.

“– back to art school,” said Sam, “or open a bar, or stand outside Grand Central and hitchhike from there to San Diego –”

“I’ve got a jet for that,” Stark interjected.

Everyone ignored him.

“Come on,” said Steve, putting his hands in his pockets. “Admit it. You want the shield for yourself.”

Sam grinned. “Man, if you gave it to me…”

_I could_ , Steve thought. _I might_. His first instinct had been to give it to Bucky, but he could give it to Sam just as easily and know it in good hands: the shield and everything it represented. It might even be easier for Sam.

He knew he wouldn’t. He turned his head, saw Bucky looking at him, the flick of his eyes studying Steve from head to toes, the way he did that thing with his mouth – Bucky had always done things with his mouth that were probably illegal everywhere in the world but France. Then again, that thought no longer held up…

“If you want out get out,” Bucky said.

Steve drew a breath. Then he smiled. Seventy years ago Buck would’ve said, _if you want out we’ll get out_. It had been eight years, or seventy, depending how you counted them.

“I don’t want out,” he said, talking to Bucky direct. “Maybe one day. I thought about it… I’ve thought about it a lot, I won’t lie. Especially when you were gone.” Bucky blinked, once. “But I don’t… I couldn’t. No. I could. Not like this, though. Not… not because it was forced. I keep thinking… Erskine gave me the serum to do some good with it.”

“He gave you the serum to fight a war that’s been over for seventy years,” Natasha said sharply – the first thing she’d said – everyone looked at her in surprise. “I hate it when you do this to yourselves, the pair of you. You don’t –“

“Owe debts?” Steve shot back.

She shook her head, impatient. “It’s not the same.”

“It’s not the point,” said Bucky as Steve opened his mouth again. “What, you’ll give it up when you’ve ground all of HYDRA into the dust under your boot heel?”

“For what they did to you I’ll grind them deeper than that,” said Steve flatly. “But I didn’t say it was about revenge –“

“Good, cause that’s not yours to take.”

“Don’t change the subject. What about Loki? – Sorry, Thor. What about things like Extremis, or – look, Nick said, on the helicarrier, before New York, he said the world was filling up with people who can’t be controlled. Well they shouldn’t be controlled; they’re _people_. But if they need to be helped – or if they need to be stopped –“

“You’re never not gonna have a war to fight, are you.”

Steve crossed his arms over his chest, reflexively defensive, but he caught Bucky’s grave look and held it, determined. They had come a long way from that recruitment office; had missed, in a multitude of ways, the future the Stark Expo had promised them... But this had not changed. Tall or short, healthy or ill, in love with Bucky Barnes or not, Steve Rogers was still himself.

“I can’t be useless,” he said. “You were right: I had everything in the world to prove. To myself, to you, to… everyone. And maybe I’ve proved it sufficiently and maybe I haven’t but I can’t be useless, Buck, I can’t not… I can’t shirk. I got no right. Even less right than before. Tell me” – suddenly he was angry – “tell me if I walked away now you’d shrug and smile and call it OK. Tell me in a year things wouldn’t be different, with us. Tell me you wouldn’t ever think, he didn’t even try.”

“Just what kind of a friend d’you think I fuckin’ am?” Bucky said dangerously.

“The kind that makes me think I can keep on doin’ this job and not go crazy after all,” said Steve. “That makes me think… even if we do screw it up, we can set it right. Anything. Everything. Call me obsessed, I don’t care.” He grinned, all teeth and corners. “But we can do – you and me, Buck, and Tasha, and Sam, we can do pretty much anything. I’m not ready to give that up. Come too far to settle.” Here, the final truth. “That mouthy asshole from Brooklyn who was too dumb not to wade into a fight for me. I’m not gonna watch him wade into ‘em for _anyone_ without me.”

Silence. Steve almost thought Sam had stopped breathing. Were Stark and Thor even still here? Natasha had turned her face away, shoulders tense. Then she looked back, and he saw her eyes were wet.

“I owe you a debt and I ain’t paid it,” he said to her. “Sam too.”

“I don’t need you to pay it,” she said.

“Well I want to.”

That made her laugh. “God alone knows what I did to deserve being dragged into your adolescent time-travelling soap opera.”

For the first time in forever Bucky took his eyes from Steve’s face. He caught hold of her hand and kissed her palm. “You gave a couple of lost soldiers a significant part of their humanity back, for a start.” He looked back at Steve. “If you _want_ it we’ll do it.”

Steve smiled at him. He would have done it anyway, but it felt ten times better to have Buck say, _yes, I’ll help you_. It always had.

“I want it back,” he said again. “I’m not ready to give it up.”

Long silence.

“You’re a basket case,” said Sam at last. “And that’s my professional assessment.”

Steve said, “Thank you,” dry as dust. “That mean you wash your hands of all of us?”

“Not just yet, man. You owe me a laser tag rematch.”

“Laser tag!” said Stark and burst out laughing.

“Is it a game?” Thor asked interestedly.

“It’s a military training tool they’ve re-purposed into a game where overgrown adolescents shoot at each other for fun,” said Steve. “So of course it’s Buck’s favourite.”

“That being said,” said Bucky, grinning, “Steve won the actual match.”

“Can I help it if I’m smarter than you?”

And just as they were gearing up to a prolonged and tension-relieving bickering match, JARVIS said, “Sir, there are two women on their way up in the elevator who spoke to Ms Terrence on the lobby desk and claimed to have information about Captain Rogers’ recent… feline problem.”

Everyone said “What,” all at once. The elevator doors opened. The young woman who stepped out first and hurried down the corridor into the room they were in was in her early thirties; she had long black hair and distinctly Slavic features, tall and pretty. For a moment Steve stared at her. He knew her. He did. Her hair was all wrong, and she was wearing jeans instead of a dress, but he knew her.

Then Bucky said, “ _Tatiana Voronov_?” and got to his feet, staring.

It _was_ Tatiana Voronov – no more than ten years older than the last time Steve had seen her – when had that been, after Ma’s death? She’d come over with a big pot full of borscht and quiet sympathies…

“Oh my god,” she said. “ _Bucky Barnes_?”

“Hey,” he said blankly.

“Wow, I might’ve known.” She started laughing, but it sounded more wrung out than amused. “Is Steve here, is he OK? Oh there you are. Thank God. Honey, I am so, so sorry, I’ve been in Cali all month and I had no idea what she’d done, none at all, and just this afternoon she told me everything and I had to come straight over here and see if Mr Stark knew how to find you. I’m so glad you worked it out –“

“Worked what out?” Steve was upright himself, clutching the back of his chair and gawping at her.

“Granmamma,” said Tati. “The cat thing!”

Neither Steve nor Bucky were capable of getting a word out. Stark made a strangled noise and looked like he was choking; Sam was gawping worse than Steve; Natasha was staring at Tati with a look that hovered between suspicion and glee. Thor, of all of them, was the only one who seemed to be capable of taking the whole thing in stride.

“Madam,” he said politely, standing up, “may we offer you food? A beverage? I am very fond of Midgardian coffee, and Tony’s is excellent.”

Tatiana swung to him, and then grinned. “Hah,” she said. “I accept.” There was a formality to her tone until she added, “But it’s not necessary, I assure you.” She took the cup of coffee Thor poured for her and waited until he lifted his own; then they drank together solemnly.

“What,” Bucky said.

“Hospitality, darling,” said Tati. “I’ve drunk your wine and I’m about to eat your bread – thank you – if either of us harms the other now that person will be cursed.” She bit into the biscuit she had chosen off the plate Thor had handed her and smiled at him as she chewed. “There. Now. Steve, I owe you an apology. I do. It was an awful trick she played –“

And a distinctly cranky voice from the doorway said, “Awful trick! What about my washing line?”

Steve sat down with a thump.

“Granmamma,” said Tati, exasperated. “I told you, wait in the hall.”

“Am I an umbrella? A walking stick, to be left at the door?” If Tatiana looked no more than a decade older than when Steve had last seen her over seventy years ago, Mrs Voronov was completely unchanged. She still had a scarf over her hair, and she still carried that black walking stick, and she still had that shrivelled-nut face that could’ve curdled milk if you’d trusted her with any, and she still fixed Steve and Bucky with the same withering glare she had deployed on them when they were boys.

_You again_. And it was that walking stick that had hit him in the chest, Steve was positive.

“Granmamma!”

“No, no, no,” said Mrs Voronov. “I will not be lectured at my time of life.” Bucky made a noise that couldn’t decide if it was a gasp or a wheeze. “I do the lecturing. I have earned it. Jimmy Barnes and the Rogers boy. Seventy years on and still running around this city like they own it, making trouble left right and centre, interrupting an old woman’s grocery shopping, your mothers God rest them would be ashamed, yes they would. Sarah Rogers” – she swung the walking-stick up with terrifying suddenness and pointed it at Steve – “was a good, kind, hardworking woman and she did not deserve to have a son like you, no she didn’t, and Elizabeth Barnes” – the walking-stick swung to Bucky – “was the same. Here you two are dressed up in silly costumes as if you’re five years old and making a ruckus in the streets like a ragamuffin parade at Thanksgiving.”

“Excuse me, ma’am, the silly costume’s his,” said Bucky politely. Traitor. “And it’s Bucky.”

“Rubbish,” said Mrs Voronov, and dropped her walking-stick onto the ground again. The thump took on an ominous and echoing significance, but Mrs Voronov appeared to have said her piece.

Tati said, “Well, that was enlightening.” She glared at her grandmother, who put her nose in the air and said nothing.

Steve coughed. “What,” he tried. “What exactly did you do to me?”

“I thought a short, sharp lesson would do you good,” said Mrs Voronov. “I offered to your mothers, I said, my Piotr will give them both a caning they will not forget. They both turned me down. Good women, both, but too soft on children.”

“It would’ve worn off in another couple of weeks,” said Tatiana reassuringly. “But you must have jumped-started it, you were always the smart ones.” She divided her smile between the both of them, fond and warm as the sun coming up, and Steve could feel himself beginning to relax, smile back.

Bucky said sharply, “Quit it, witch.”

Tati grinned. “You always noticed.” The warmth receded as if a window had been opened, and so did Steve’s good will.

“How exactly did I jump-start it?”

“Not at all, I’m sure” said Mrs Voronov. “It was not as strong as I intended.”

Tatiana glared her into silence – she had always been the only one who could do that. “The, uh, the terms of the spell…”

“True love’s kiss?” Steve said sarcastically.

“Well yes, but it’s on you, you needed – there needed to be two people in the world that you loved completely, she did it because she thought Bucky was dead.” Tatiana rubbed the back of her neck awkwardly. “Though I will say, I wish you’d worked this out sooner. Sally Fowler and I had a lot of money riding on –”

This, apparently, was the last straw for Stark, who dropped his coffee cup onto the carpet and his head onto his folded arms on the table, whooping with laughter. Everyone ignored him, except Sam, who had sunk his own head into his hands. His shoulders were shaking.

“Sally Fowler was a saucy minx who was no better than she should be,” said Mrs Voronov. “It’s a wonder she landed any man at all, let alone a respectable Russian boy. She married an Andreyko, and they had five boys. Five!”

“When I hit four hundred I’ll marry,” said Tati sourly. “Shut _up_ , Granmamma.”

“You’ve said your piece,” said Mrs Voronov. “And I’ve said mine. If I catch you two messing about disturbing innocent people’s lives with your silly games again I’ll make it more permanent.”

“No you won’t,” Tatiana shouted.

“What about – shut it, Tati – what about the serum?” Steve demanded.

“Oh!” Tatiana laughed. “That’s not a problem. The curse is interfering with the serum. It’ll wear off in the next couple of days.”

“That man Erskine was an untalented magician,” said Mrs Voronov disgustedly. The way she said the word ‘magician’ suggested that she considered it a deathly insult. Thinking about the quiet, kindly, grieving old man who had given Steve so much trust made him angry on Erskine’s behalf, but Bucky shot him a look and he stayed quiet for once. He definitely didn’t need to be a cat again.

Again Thor was the one who had it all together. “Lady,” he said, still carefully polite, “May I ask if there will be any side-effects, lingering effects, aftershocks or suchlike?”

Mrs Voronov gave him a sharp look. “What is your interest here, Asgardian? This is not your realm.”

“The Captain is my friend and shieldbrother.”

“Who?” She stared. “Oh. Oh, they gave him a rank. Wonderful. Neither of you deserved to come out of short pants. Hah!” She thumped her cane on the floor again. Then she said, “No, Prince. No aftereffects. I am old and I am capricious, but I am no longer very cruel. Cruelty is more trouble than it’s worth, frankly.”

Bucky’s shoulders shook with the effort of holding his tongue. Mrs Voronov saw, and arranged her face into an expression that approximated a smile. It wasn’t friendly.

“And yet here you both are, happy to your bones,” she said, answering the unspoken complaint. “Congratulations.” For a moment it almost sounded as if she meant it. Then, for the first time, her attention moved to the other occupants of the room. Stark was still laughing. Sam, red-faced, was biting his thumb to make himself keep quiet. Natasha was very still indeed, but this was enough to draw Mrs Voronov’s attention.

“And I’ll say to you the same thing I said to Tanya here,” Mrs Voronov snapped, levelling the walking-stick at Natasha and recovering something of the distracted old lady act she’d had before she spoke to Thor. “Don’t waste your time running around with Jimmy Barnes” – “Bucky!” – “and the Rogers boy! They’re nothing but trouble, nothing. I said it to Tanya, but she never believes me, she’s got modern notions. You’re a good girl and you deserve better, child, yes you do. But,” she sniffed disgustedly, “you’re a Romanov, bone and blood, and you’ll have your way. I know, I know. You’re all the same. Pigheaded.”

“I… appreciate your advice, madam,” Natasha said formally.

Mrs Voronov snorted. “But you won’t listen to it. Oh well, it’s your heart, child, you know what you’re doing with it. When they break it, come to me and I will spell them for you, eh?”

“They’re not going to break it,” said Natasha steadily. “However, I thank you for the offer. It was kindly meant.” Her fists were clenched very tight in her lap. Steve reached out and laid his hand over hers, wishing to god the miserable witch would just leave them _alone_. She could yell at him and Bucky all she wanted but she had no right to put Natasha on the spot like this – especially not in front of Stark and Thor.

“It was not,” said Mrs Voronov. “I’ve a speciality in straying lovers.” She sighed regretfully, and fixed a baleful glare on both Bucky and Steve. But she saw Steve’s hand on Nat’s, and Bucky shifted his weight very deliberately, preparation for a step that would put him between her and them. The shrivelled mouth tightened even further. Then she sniffed again. “I’m not surprised you’re possessive. Celts!”

Steve had absolutely no idea what that had to do with _anything_.

“ _Granmamma_ ,” said Tatiana despairingly. “Oh god. I’m so, so sorry. I really am. Listen, you two: look me up.” She grinned at them. “We’ll get a beer. It’s really good to see you again, you know.”

And finally Steve smiled. “It’s good to see you too, Tati.”

“Please leave now,” said Bucky.

“We are,” Tatiana promised. “Come on, Granmamma.” She took firm hold of Mrs Voronov’s elbow and started to tow her back down the corridor towards the elevator. Distantly Steve heard the ghastly woman’s voice raised in a cry of “And not a word of apology for my washing line!”; then the elevator doors swooshed shut, and JARVIS said, “Mrs and Miss Voronov are descending to the lobby, sir. Shall I call for more coffee?”

Red-faced and crying with laughter, Stark said, “No, JARVIS, alcohol, come on,” and collapsed again.

“I told you,” said Bucky. “I told you an’ I told you, _not that fire escape_.”

“They weren’t my matches, you knucklehead,” said Steve.

“Did you sleep with Sally Fowler, too?” Natasha asked curiously.

“Jeez, Nat, make it sound more sordid,” said Bucky. “We stepped out for a couple of weeks, it wasn’t anything.”

“I am either gonna start crying or laugh till I pass out,” said Natasha.

“Well, you appear to have had a far more interesting childhood than you’ve previously admitted,” said Thor, grinning.

“What did Tati mean, you’ve always noticed?” Steve said to Bucky.

“Oh don’t tell me you didn’t know she was a witch,” said Bucky.

“I wasn’t sleepin’ with her!”

“She used to stop the clocks every Tuesday mornin’ so Mr Prendergast never got to lessons on time!”

Of all the things that could’ve set Natasha laughing that morning, the remark about Mr Prendergast seemed to be the last straw. She put her head in her hands the way Sam had earlier and laughed until she cried.

Sam said, “Well, I dunno about the rest of you, but I feel very sufficiently revenged for Thanksgiving last year when my Mom told y’all about Halloween ’97.” And he poured himself yet another cup of coffee and leaned back comfortably in his chair to enjoy the rest of the floor show.

+++

At about four o’clock in the morning two days later, Steve woke up out of a long deep sleep, snatching at the edges of some strange dream about boats and washing-lines, and found he had abs.

“It didn’t even hurt,” he said in surprise.

“Ugh,” said Natasha. “Two space heaters.”

“Go back to sleep, Steve,” said Bucky. Then, suddenly, he said, “It didn’t _hurt_?”

“Uh,” said Steve. “Good night?”

“Jesus wept,” said Bucky, disgusted.

“Please, both of you, I love you to death, but _go back to sleep_ ,” Natasha groaned.

+++

(Eighteen hours later Steve finally, gloriously, triumphantly, got fucked. It was better than any fantasy he’d ever had. He thought he might be addicted to it. And if that turned out to be the case, well, stranger things had happened to him, and none of them had felt as good as this. It sure didn't seem like Bucky and Nat minded.)

 

 

 

 


End file.
